Slaughter's Instrumental Role in Building Team Chemistry

Grace Slaughter began her college career playing under several vocal team leaders at Missouri. Now, her junior year is underway, and she is among the Tigers' locker room leaders.

"On the leadership side, I've definitely been working on being just a very vocal player. Sometimes I've been a little bit more observed on the court," Slaughter said. "Coach Harper, telling me, 'Hey, your team needs to hear you in these situations, and they need to see what you're seeing.' So I think I've been working on being more vocal."

Missouri faced a significant roster turnover through this past offseason. All but five players departed the program. Slaughter, among the returnees, knew she had to step up with a large transfer portal class on the way in.

Head coach Kellie Harper managed to get seven transfers and one freshman to buy into the program's future. However, the Tigers faced many challenges in building the team chemistry, basically from scratch.

Since the offseason, Harper has credited the returners for setting the team's expectations in the new era of Missouri women's basketball. Harper acknowledged Slaughter as a leader and a hard-working veteran of the team.

Slaughter led the Tigers in scoring last season with 15 points per game, but she seems poised to step into a bigger role. Another returner, redshirt junior Averi Kroenke, will be on the sidelines this year. She suffered her second season-ending injury in the past three seasons with the Tigers. Kroenke was expected to play a significant role for the Tigers, but that gap now leaves a door open for one of Missouri's newcomers to step up.

Prior to the season, Slaughter mentioned sophomore guard and Pepperdine transfer Chloe Sotell as a player who resembled a little bit of her own play style and matched her work ethic.

"I see a little bit of myself in Chloe Sotell. She is always in the gym shooting, and I love that," Slaughter said.

The Pepperdine transfer responded to Slaughter's statement by saying, "It means a lot to me, and makes me want to continue to get better."

Sotell played high school ball at Montverde Academy, a prep-level powerhouse. She won two national championships at the high school level. In college, her first stop was on the West Coast with a one-year stint at Pepperdine. She was a West Coast Conference freshman standout, earning All-Freshman Team honors a year ago. She averaged 10.6 points along with three rebounds per game. She shoots threes at a high volume, taking nearly seven attempts from long range each game for the Waves.

"I remember when I was getting up some shots and workouts early summer, her coming in and watching, and then she started doing it as well," Slaughter said.

Slaughter credited past leaders as her basis for being a leader. Former Missouri standouts Hayley Frank and Mama Dembele were among the former teammates she mentioned. She looked up to both of her former mentors, who were vocal leaders and knew how to make their teammates better.

"I got to watch them [Frank and Dembele] in the huddles and how they were able to address people," Slaughter said. "Frankie did a really good job of understanding the type of player she was around, and I felt like she did such a great job of knowing this person might need more of a pat on the back, and this person might be need more of a pep up talk. So being able to learn some of those things from them has been super important, and definitely things I'm trying to bring into being more of a vocal leader this year."

With one full offseason in the books since taking on her new role, it seems like Slaugher is thriving. Several newcomers mentioned Slaughter as one of the players they are looking forward to playing with this season.

"Grace is a great teammate and a great player, and she's exciting to be on the team with her now," Sotell said.

After one game, it seems that Sotell will be the first player off the bench this season, willing to provide a scoring spark any time she checks in. She commented on how she anticipates helping the team this season.

"I think just bringing my competitiveness and my fast pace will definitely help. Just doing whatever the team needs me to do," Sotell said.

Read More Missouri Tigers News