Mizzou women's basketball, driven by youth, set to begin second season under Harper

“This is a team that will pull together and this is a team that is going to be united in their goal on the court of winning,” Harper said Monday. “I've got cold chills saying that.”

The 2018-19 season marked both the last time the Tigers finished with a winning record against SEC opponents or made the NCAA Tournament.

Missouri, after finishing 17-17 and 4-12 in Southeastern Conference play in Harper’s debut season, overhauled its roster over the offseason. Just four players from the 2025-26 roster remain for the upcoming season.

Postseason desires

Should the Tigers do enough of their desired winning, they could make it back to the NCAA Tournament. 

“That's definitely the end goal for this team, and I think it would be really, really special for us to be able to do it this year,” Grace Slaughter, Missouri’s leading scorer in each of the last two seasons, said. “We made a good jump last year, making a postseason appearance (the Women's Basketball Invitational Tournament). But obviously, we'd love to make another jump this year to the NCAA Tournament."

Making the NCAA Tournament would mean thriving, or at least surviving, in the SEC, a task far easier said than done. The conference features the Dawn Staley-led South Carolina Gamecocks, Kim Mulkey’s LSU Tigers and plenty other competitive teams.

Missouri has struggled in conference play for the better part of a decade, but each new season offers a page to write a new chapter. This could be its chance.

“I think there are going to be some surprises,” Harper said. “I hope we're a positive surprise.”

Being a surprise also means starting somewhere. Missouri, based on its recent history, likely won’t be an early pick to win big games. That doesn’t mean it can’t.

“We're still trying to find ways to get wins, find ways to be better,” Harper said. “You got to steal some wins that you're not — on paper — supposed to get. We want to knock somebody off and give ourselves a chance to be as good as we can possibly be. And then I'm not ever going to sell us short. Our goal will always be very lofty.”

'The Fab Five,' Missouri’s way

After officially being named head coach of the program in March of 2025, when the high school recruiting cycle had nearly run its course, Harper hit the transfer portal hard to complete her roster for the season, bringing in eight transfers to round out the 13-player roster.

Now having been at Missouri for the senior seasons of the high school Class of 2026, Harper constructed her roster in a way that best fits her program.

“We felt like signing a really good high school class was going to be the best avenue for us to really step up our team,” Harper said. “And I think we were able to address some athleticism on the perimeter. We were able to address some height and depth in the post and some competitiveness in that class.”

At the helm of the five-player class is Natalya Hodge, a four-star prospect and the No. 9 point guard in the nation, per 247Sports. Hodge scored over 2,000 career points before beginning her senior season at Bearden High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, an area Harper is familiar with from her time at Tennessee, and is the only primary ball-handler in the freshman class.

Joining Hodge in the class is four-star forward Khloe Ford, a 6-foot-4 Alabama product that could contend for a starting frontcourt spot. Ellie Muller, a graduate of Dowling Catholic, the alma mater of WNBA star Caitlin Clark, stands at 6’3, while Cecilie Brandimore, a Tennessee product, measures in at 6’4. Hodge’s lone backcourt running mate in the class is Jada Maples, a 5'10", four-star combo guard out of Arkansas.

Each member of the group has one thing in common.

“They are going to make mistakes — they are young, and there's a lot of them,” Harper said. “I think we, as coaches, have to find a balance of pushing them, but also being patient as they grow, because it's just a natural progression of college athletes.”

The few — but notable — returners

For the last three seasons, it’s been rather difficult to discuss the Tigers without mentioning Slaughter. She’s ascending up Missouri’s all-time leaderboards, ranking top-10 in career points, box plus-minus, 3-point field goals, minutes and a few more categories, and will likely climb higher throughout the upcoming season.

She’s improved in each of her first three seasons with the program, posting career highs across the board in 2025-26 with 18.7 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game. As the face of an otherwise struggling program, it’s been hard to pick at major holes in her game — what’s left to improve on?

“We want to be able to see the improvements this year be holistically broader,” Harper said of Slaughter. “I don't know if she can score more points or not. Maybe she can score more points. But how do we develop the entire athlete? We're doing that with strength and conditioning. We're doing that with her skillset development, her ball handling, her rebounding, defense.”

There are more freshmen on Missouri’s roster than there are returners or incoming transfers. Being such a young program in the SEC, the Tigers will rely on experienced players who’ve been donning Tiger stripes for a few seasons to give those freshmen guidance.

Averi Kroenke, a fifth-year guard set to make her return to the court after missing the 2025-26 season with a torn ACL, is here for it.

“I try to be someone that all of these players know they can come to for anything on the court and off the court,” Kroenke said. “Whether it's they need help with a play or how we do something offensively and defensively, or if it's ‘Hey I'm homesick,’ ‘Hey I'm struggling with this class, what can I do?’ I just want to be someone that they can come to, and I try to embrace that role and just be loving and caring for them.”

Sharpshooting wing Abbey Schreacke is set to enter her fourth season with the program, having averaged more than seven points per game and shooting over 35% from 3-point range in each of her first three.

The last returner is Reka Toman, a 6’0" forward entering her second season with the program after averaging 1.5 points per game across 26 appearances in 2025-26.

“We are very blessed to have people that have been here — they know the ropes, they love Mizzou — that are unbelievably good people and they're people that we trust in the locker room," Harper said.

Transfers make quick impressions

Oftentimes, there’s a bit of a growing phase for transfers to find their roles within a new team. Harper, while not targeting a high quantity of transfers, found a few that fit that have made early impressions on Missouri’s culture.

Early in the summer, Indiana transfer Nevaeh Caffey and Michigan transfer McKenzie Mathurin were on the floor, fighting for the ball in a drill. That play stuck out to Hodge as one that exhibited the competitive nature of Missouri’s roster.

“One of the biggest things in women’s basketball is how to get some energy going,” Mathurin said. “Charges, offensive rebounds, obviously defensive rebounds. I'm just a very aggressive player, so I love going after the ball. However we got to get the ball, I'm gonna do it.”

Tanyuel Welch, a fifth-year transfer from Arizona, joins Caffey and Mathurin as the last of three transfers on Missouri’s roster. All three could contend for a spot in the starting lineup, given Missouri’s need for ball-handling alongside Slaughter.

More importantly, though, all three seem to be well-acclimated to the program.

“Those three transfers, in my opinion, set the tone in the first week of practice this summer,” Harper said.

A looming beginning

Harper’s Tigers started the 2025-26 season with a scare, falling to Maryville (DIII) in a 90-84 overtime shock in a preseason exhibition. They then eked out wins over Central Arkansas and Tulane in its first two regular-season contests before going 2-2 in a four-game stretch against Arkansas State, Kansas, Southern Illinois and Troy.

With a difficult SEC schedule awaiting, it’s important for Missouri to get off to a good start in nonconference play this go-around.

“That first exhibition game is all about putting on the uniform and playing under the lights, and I assume we're going to have some players that are going to be nervous as cats,” Harper said.

While the Tigers open the season with five consecutive games against mid-major opponents, the later portion of their nonconference schedule holds challenges against Kansas State, Florida State and Illinois. Conference play begins Dec. 31 against Mississippi State.

Adversity awaits, and Missouri has to be ready for it.

“I think, right now, nothing's been hard. Okay, conditioning's hard, practices are hard, but you haven't lost a game,” Harper said. “Somebody hasn't been pulled out of the lineup. Somebody hasn't not played. None of those really hard things have happened yet. But from everything that we've seen thus far, this is a team that wants to attack adversity.”

Missouri will begin its season with an exhibition game against Lincoln at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 29, followed by its regular-season opener against Howard at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 2, both of which will be at Mizzou Arena.