Kellie Harper is adamant.

A new feeling dawned on the first-year Missouri women’s basketball coach when she had Todd Schaefer, one of her assistants, at her house for dinner with her family in the offseason. Harper had taken a year away from the sidelines after a “shock” ending at Tennessee. She was not in the thick of preseason preparations last year.

And she hasn’t returned as quite the same coach.

“We were just talking with my kids and my husband, and I made the comment at that point, ‘I'm just happy. I'm just really happy,’” Harper said. … “I'm going to enjoy this year, period. I'm going to make that happen.”

Missouri is the fifth stop of her head coaching career, following Western Carolina, NC State, Missouri State and her alma mater, Tennessee, where she also won three nationa

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