New Missouri Tiger women’s basketball coach Kellie Harper had to get straight to work.
And it didn’t leave much time for getting settled in.
“The three priorities are current players, staff and recruiting,” Harper said of when she got started in Columbia. “One hundred percent, it was not, you know, what my office looked like or any of those things.”
Harper had a lot to get done pretty quickly as she got started. The transfer portal opened just a few days later, she had a full staff to build and would have to rebuild a roster that was already losing four players to eligibility before another five exited through the portal and one more retired from basketball due to long-term injuries.
That eventually left just five players returning from last year’s roster for Harper to build around.
“We wanted to meet with our players as quickly as possible, meet with them individually as quickly as possible,” Harper said.
Along with trying to keep those returning players in town, Harper had to build up a staff and she turned to multiple people she had worked with before.
After adding her assistant coaches, Harper got to work in the portal, bringing in player after player to fill out the roster.
“I think we’ve been able to get in and get really high-quality people who fit what we’re looking for on the court that will be great additions to our established players here,” Harper said. “I think they all bring something really, really unique.”
Now the roster sits at 11 players out of a possible 15 and Harper said the Tigers aren’t done yet, but the player is more important than filling out some number for the roster.
“Recruiting is fluid, roster management, apparently these days, y’all, is fluid,” Harper said. “We feel good about where we’re at now … we’re still looking, we’re still trying to bring in a few more pieces that make sense for us. Listen, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna do it just for numbers.”
Harper said with each transfer, she tried to explain the vision for the program in the new era of Mizzou women’s basketball and where she and the staff think each player can be individually.
And now that the roster is mostly full for next season, Harper has at least partially moved on to high school recruiting, tossing out a number of offers to players the past couple of weeks.
“We definitely want to move that way,” Harper said. “Where we are bringing in high school players. I think that’s going to be important for our culture and for me, I think just the stability and the consistency of high school players coming in and doing what Grace (Slaughter) is doing. I think that’s going to be really important to move forward.”
A month and a half in, Harper’s work has only just begun. She has the majority of her roster in place for 2025-26 but it will take more than new names to reinvigorate a Tiger basketball program that has stagnated in recent years.
“What we’re going to try to do is extremely challenging in our league,” Harper said. “They’re up for it and the players who are coming in, that’s why they’re coming here, for this great challenge. So I’m just super excited about it. I’m excited to get started.”
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