Through her first offseason, Kellie Harper had a lot of spots to fill on the Missouri Tiger roster with only five players returning.
And for the most part, those spots have gone to fast-moving, high-scoring guards.
There’s Shannon Dowell - a 5-foot-10 guard who averaged 17.6 points per game and shot 49.3 percent from the field last season - and Saniah Tyler - a 5-6 guard who averaged 10.2 points per game as a sophomore before her role was reduced last season. There’s Chloe Sotell - a 6-0 rising sophomore who scored 10.6 points per game in her freshman season - and Lisa Thompson - a 5-9 junior who averaged 6.7 points as a backup her freshman season - plus Jayla Smith - a 6-0 graduate who averaged 7.8 points as a backup her sophomore year. And outside of the guards, Harper added Jordana Reisma, a 6-3 senior forward who averaged 14.5 points and 6.9 rebounds per game last season.
The key connection between each? They can score the ball.
“Fast paced, really, really fast-paced, high-scoring,” Missouri assistant coach Liza Fruendt said of what the Tigers’ brand will be this season. “We have 11 people on our roster that can all score the basketball and we feel really, really good about that.”
Fruendt’s comments came before the addition of Sotell, who clearly follows the same pattern of talented offensive performers.
Those additions came with a focus on recruiting as Harper hired the staff.
Fruendt was a recruiting coordinator under Harper at Tennessee, assistant coach Todd Schaefer was the recruiting coordinator before he began taking head coaching positions, assistant coach Michael Scruggs was the recruiting coordinator at Georgia Tech before joining Harper’s staff and assistant coach Jennifer Sullivan helped Tennessee sign a top-10 recruiting class when working her second stint with Harper.
“It’s just relationships, it’s basically just falling in love with people,” Sullivan said. “And sometimes it works out that they’re part of your family for the next four-plus years and sometimes it doesn’t, but we’ve gotten a chance to be a part of their lives, their families, their siblings and it’s just understanding and learning their story and seeing if this is a fit. And then they become part of our family, they’re with us for the rest of their life. So I think we’re really passionate about that.”
Add in the Tigers’ returning players led by Grace Slaughter and this year’s Tiger team should be able to score at a high clip.
“If we have kids that love Missouri, and they’re also excited about Kellie, you know, they’re excited about the staff and the pieces that we’ve added, it’s going to be really fun,” Fruendt said. “It’s gonna be a fun brand of basketball.”
And now with the 2025-26 roster basically set, the Tiger coaches have moved on to building the foundation of the next few years, throwing out numerous offers to high school players.
Harper, Sullivan and assistant coach Kenzie Kostas all have deep connections within the state after coaching at Missouri State, Fruendt was close by at Illinois and Schaefer was also recruiting parts of Missouri while he was at Arkansas.
“There’s a ton of great basketball players from Missouri,” Kostas said. “And so I'm really excited about continuing to recruit in the state. I think Coach Kellie has talked to a lot of good high school players already. We’re fortunate to have some of our team already from the area. So as a kid who grew up playing in Missouri as well, it’s cool to be able to have the opportunity to keep them home.”
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