One of the Connecticut Sun's stories from the first half of the season: point guard Ty Harris

Mohegan — It's a role that Ty Harris has been training for her entire career: starting point guard for the WNBA's Connecticut Sun.She spent four years at the University of South Carolina, learning from one of the best point guards ever to play the game in head coach Dawn Staley. And she spent four years in the WNBA prior to this season, three in Dallas and one in Connecticut, last year serving as the understudy to then-point guard Natisha Hiedeman.Harris earned the starting role this season, following Hiedeman's trade, due to her confidence.The Sun are 18-6 headed into the second half of the season, which begins at 9:30 p.m. Friday in Dallas (ION). That's second in the league after the New York Liberty.That's with the personable Harris registering career highs in minutes per game (30.5), points (11.0) and assists (3.2)."Yes, I mean, I did," Harris said this week, asked if she felt she was ready to be Connecticut's starter at the beginning of the season."Honestly, I've been wanting to be a starting point guard all my life. Obviously I've been a point guard under Dawn Staley for the last four years of college ... she taught me a lot of things. And so it was just finally getting the opportunity to showcase that I can be a starting point guard."Harris scored a season-high 23 points in a win at Washington on June 27, shooting 9-for-14, and she had a stretch of seven straight games in double figures from June 2-18. She's finished with seven assists twice.The confidence to crack the starting lineup comes from the 5-foot-10 Harris's history as a point guard — as a senior at South Carolina she earned the Dawn Staley Award as the nation's best guard — but also from her work during the offseason.Coming off an overseas injury in the offseason two years ago, Harris didn't venture abroad this year, instead spending time in Connecticut getting stronger.She worked with strength and conditioning coach Analisse Rios in the weight room, strengthening her legs, and with player development coach Keith Porter on the court — "just working on changing pace, being consistent with my 3s," Harris said.She also has another guard to learn from in Sun head coach Stephanie White, the former Wade Trophy winner who led Purdue to the 1999 national championship. Harris has known White since White was coaching at Vanderbilt at the same time Harris played for South Carolina."I stayed here with the coaches and got better and tried to just evolve my game into what coach Steph would want me to do and I just got the opportunity," Harris said."... It's cool to have point guards as my coaches because they understand what I go through. It's a lot to it. It's a lot of pressure to be a point guard. There's a lot of things the coaches hold you to as the point guard; it might not even be your fault but at the end of the day you are the point guard so you've got to take the responsibility."White assesses a $5 fine every time Harris doesn't shoot when she's open. She's shooting 41.1%, a team-high 35.1% from 3-point range.The Sun made some changes during the Olympic break, namely trading Moriah Jefferson and Rachel Banham to the Chicago Sky for Marina Mabrey, another sharpshooting guard, averaging 14.0 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.5 assists.The team has been working to incorporate Mabrey into the lineup. Meanwhile, Olympic gold medalist Alyssa Thomas has returned, along with Sun teammate and Thomas's fiancee DeWanna Bonner, who accompanied her to Paris."It's been great," Harris said of Thomas and Bonner. "They have a legacy and they're All-Stars. It's kind of just putting it all together, just us keeping that confidence of what we've been doing."She believes the addition of Mabrey will add versatility to the backcourt."Ty Harris is a special guard, a special player, a special person," South Carolina's Staley said during Harris's senior year, with Harris going on to be chosen seventh overall by Dallas in the 2020 WNBA Draft. "She won a national championship as a freshman and spent the next two years working harder than any player in the country, honing her talents and quietly building one of the great careers in South Carolina history."Dallas is led by WNBA All-Star Arike Ogunbowale with 22.3 points, 4.8 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game.The Sun will continue their road trip at 3 p.m. Sunday in Atlanta, followed by hosting a home game Tuesday at TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics.v.fulkerson@theday.com