Sometimes, they’re too open.
Kellie Harper took a timeout with six seconds to go in a one-point game because she saw the uncertainty in Shannon Dowell’s eyes. Her Missouri women’s basketball team had made big play after big play. Grace Slaughter sidestepped a contest and rattled in a must-have 3-pointer with 45 seconds to go. Jayla Smith’s poke-out steal on a late Cal inbounds saved Mizzou from playing the foul game.
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The Tigers needed one more. One more moment. One winning play.
The plan was to get Dowell driving downhill. She scored a game-high 25 points. It wasn’t a complicated choice.
But the Tigers needed to get her a lane to drive through after the inbounds, so they pulled Slaughter from the far corner to the top of the key to provide a screen for Dowell to sprint around. It worked. Dowell was three feet ahead of the nearest Golden Bear with 1.7 seconds on the game clock.
“I was just so relieved,” Dowell said. “It’s one of those shots that’s just so wide open that you really got to focus even more to make it.”
That wide open layup has opened the door for all sorts of possibilities this year.
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If there’s a turnaround afoot, that winner was the moment that sparked it.
Missouri women’s basketball clinched a massive nonconference win, the first of the Harper era, by defeating California in dramatic fashion, 68-67 in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Dec. 4 at Mizzou Arena.
Harper has challenged this team’s competitiveness and grit several times in her first season at the helm.
It’s only been five weeks since the Tigers were the butt of a joke after an exhibition loss to Division II Maryville. It’s been only two weeks since they were run off their own court by mid-major Troy.
The same words kept coming up after Thursday’s win.
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Toughness. Grit. Scrappiness.
If you gave Harper three wishes, we’d wager that’s what she’d ask for.
And she got all three Thursday.
Mizzou has a signature win now. More importantly, Missouri (8-2) looked like a different outfit. A team with an identity. A team with resolve.
That’s a long way to come in five weeks.
“I think (we’re) getting comfortable with each other, building trust with each other,” Dowell said. “Knowing that somebody is going to be there for you, to pick you up, communicate, tell you when you’re wrong, taking accountability. I feel like those are all things that we’ve grown with over the past five weeks.
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“So, I really feel like, also as a team, we’ve been getting tougher. Mentally tougher.”
Oct. 15, 2025; Birmingham, Alabama; Missouri Tigers head coach Kellie Harper talks with the media during SEC Media Days at Grand Bohemian Hotel.
Mizzou was more than happy to get physical with the Golden Bears. The Tigers’ defense is unrecognizable from early November. Mizzou went elbow to elbow with an NCAA Tournament team that has true SEC size. The Tigers were the first to the hardwood on loose balls. Cal’s 6-foot-5 center never had an easy possession.
This isn’t a problem-solved result. The Tigers are far from perfect, and the limitations aren’t hard to spot.
Mizzou doesn’t have a traditional point guard and is turnover-prone. Beyond center Jordana Reisma, there is not much size on the roster and that’s going to be challenging against the athleticism in the SEC.
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But Mizzou did something Harper has been asking for against Cal. It fought like hell.
“It wasn’t our prettiest, most well-executed game. So, we won ugly” Harper said. “That’s good. To win ugly shows grit and toughness as well, and I’m glad to see that.”
The Tigers trailed by five points entering the fourth quarter. If it wasn’t for a tremendous, late seven-point spurt from Slaughter, who finished with a 22-point and 10-rebound double-double, it would have been worse.
Harper said she looked every player in the eyes in that break and told them …
“‘We’re going to win this game,’” the coach said. “We can win this game, and you’ve got to believe we can win this game. … It’s going to be a grind. We’re going to have 10 minutes of a grind, but you can do it. And there’s something to be said about following through in that moment.”
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Harper rattled off just about every moment from there that got her Tigers across the line for what she called a “huge win.” Every major shot. Every defensive stop. Mizzou needed ‘em all, and got ‘em all.
It all added up to an intriguing win. The Golden Bears were a spot ahead of MU at No. 75 in the recently released WNET rankings. Mizzou now has a big win on its record and a building block for the remainder of the year.
More: Late Dowell layup gives Missouri women’s basketball dramatic win over California
More: Missouri women’s basketball’s full 2025-26 season schedule. Dates, times, TV channels
Five weeks ago, this result was likely flipped. But Mizzou showed us it can fight.
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Now, this season has some intrigue.
“We could have easily folded. We could have said, ‘woe is me.’ We could have started taking bad shots, and we didn’t,” Harper said. “We didn’t. We made big shots. You don’t just go out and win because you say, ‘I want to win,’ and, ‘let’s go.’ You have to make plays. And Grace hit the 3. Jayla hit a jumper. We got some stops. And we went and earned the win down the stretch.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri women’s basketball showed new, tough side in dramatic Cal win
