
Incarnate Word senior Saniah Tyler goes sailing past Kickapoo's Miya Nieto in the Missouri Class 6 girls basketball championship game, on Friday, March 18, 2022, at JQH Arena in Springfield, Mo. Â
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Kellie Harper has figured out how to fire up the bat signal.
The new Missouri women’s basketball coach has started to tease incoming transfer portal commitments with a signature celebratory post on social media, like her counterparts Eli Drinkwitz and Dennis Gates. And lately, she’s sent a few out into the world.
Harper has added four players out of the transfer portal during her first roster building at Mizzou, bringing the Tigers up to 10 players on the roster for the 2025-26 season. Assuming the limit on basketball roster sizes for that season and beyond will be 15, Harper has upwards of five spots to go — but she’s already making headway on her first MU team.
Harper started with bringing former Incarnate Word star Saniah Tyler back to her home state after three seasons at Kentucky.
Tyler, the Post-Dispatch All-Metro player of the year in 2022, had been an occasional starter for the Wildcats in the 2023-24 season but was solidly in a reserve role last season. Playing just over 12 minutes per game, Tyler averaged 2.3 points and 1.2 rebounds per outing but shot an efficient 36.4% from 3-point range. She’s a career 34.6% 3-point shooter at the college level.
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She was an accomplished preps star for the St. Louis girls basketball dynasty, leading the Red Knights to an 85-4 record — including 68 consecutive wins — as their starting point guard.
Harper also turned to the east side of the state border for another guard, signing former O’Fallon, Illinois, star Shannon Dowell from Illinois State.
Dowell earned all-Missouri Valley Conference honors in her second season with the Redbirds, pacing the team in scoring (17.6 points per game).
On the floor for more than 30 minutes a night, she shot 49.3% from the field and 31.5% from deep while also hauling in 5.2 rebounds per game.
Dowell was a Post-Dispatch All-Metro selection in 2023 after leading O’Fallon to its first Class 4A state title.
Mizzou bolstered its frontcourt by signing forward Jordana Reisma from Cleveland State, for which she earned all-Horizon League honors while started every game for the Vikings over the past two seasons.
Listed at 6-foot-3, Reisma made 67.7% of her field-goal attempts at Cleveland State this past season, all of them coming from inside the arc. She averaged 14.5 points and 6.9 rebounds per game.
Harper’s coaching staff turned to a familiar face for its fourth transfer addition in former Florida Atlantic guard Sydney Mains.
Mains played only three games at FAU before suffering a season-ending injury, which makes it likely that she still has four years of eligibility remaining. Harper hired FAU coach Jennifer Sullivan to be an assistant on her Missouri staff.
And Mains hails from Knoxville, Tennessee, where Harper last coached the Tennessee Lady Vols.
Mizzou’s most significant outgoing transfer of the offseason is guard Ashton Judd, who played more than 17 minutes per game this past season while averaging 11.6 points and five rebounds. She has not announced her next school.
In total, six players have transferred away from MU — the kind of movement now expected when a coaching change occurs.
Still, the Tigers have retained five players from last season’s roster, led by standout guard Grace Slaughter, who averaged 15 points per game and shot 45.9% from 3-point range this past season. Point guard Averi Kroenke, guard Abbey Schreacke, forward Hannah Linthacum and forward Ma’Riya Vincent are also expected to return. Missouri has one incoming freshman, too: guard Nikki Kerstein.
The women’s college basketball transfer portal is open through Wednesday. Players do not need to have signed with their next stops by then — only to enter by that point.
Mizzou women's basketball coach Kellie Harper speaks at her introductory press conference on Monday, March 31, 2025, in Columbia, Missouri. (Video by Mizzou Network, used with permission of Mizzou Athletics)