From 3-6 start to No. 1 in ACC: How Kara Lawson got Duke turned around
Kara Lawson doesn’t want brownie points.
Not for navigating a 3-6 start against a bruising nonconference schedule. Not for navigating ACC play with a seven-player rotation after three season-ending injuries. Not even for delivering Duke’s first outright ACC regular-season title in 13 years.
“I don’t want an extra brownie from you guys for it,” Lawson told reporters after the Blue Devils’ regular-season finale Sunday, a 74-69 loss to UNC in Chapel Hill. “But what I’m saying is: I’m proud of my team. On the fly, to lose three players to season-ending stuff, with seven players (in rotation) — we were able to navigate the 18-game schedule and win the league. I think that’s awesome.”
That mix of deflection and pride has defined Lawson’s sixth season at Duke. The No. 13 Blue Devils (21-8, 16-2 ACC) stumbled through November before ripping off a 17-game winning streak — its longest since 2010-11 — to earn the No. 1 seed in this week’s ACC tournament in Duluth, Georgia. Duke will begin its chase for a second straight conference tournament title at 11 a.m. Friday in the quarterfinals, playing the winner of the Virginia-Clemson contest.
The Blue Devils were heavily favored to be in this position in the fall, tabbed as the No. 7 team nationally and top ACC squad in the AP’s preseason poll. But the path to achieve that, it turned out, was anything but smooth.
The Blue Devils’ only wins through its first nine games came against Holy Cross, Norfolk State and Liberty, going 0-6 against Quad 1 and 2 opponents. A loss to West Virginia — which had just five available players (among them one starter) in the second half after multiple ejections — became the defining snapshot of Duke’s sputtering first month.
After absorbing a 16-point loss to LSU on Dec. 4 in the ACC-SEC challenge, Blue Devils’ senior guard Ashlon Jackson told reporters, “we’re in the mud right now.”
By the time Duke defeated UNC on Feb. 15 — part of that 17-game win streak — this much was clear to Jackson: “we got it out the mud.”
Translation? That early season hardship led to the Blue Devils’ recent success.
“That was on purpose,” Jackson said in February. “Like, how are you supposed to grow if you’re not used to playing in those type of environments? We still got long way to go, but we’re not far off.”
‘The result doesn’t always go the way you want’
On a December Zoom call during USA women’s basketball training camp in Durham, Lawson took three big sips from her stainless steel tumbler before answering the tough question she’d just been posed: what made her confident she could still lead the Olympic team, given her Blue Devils’ rocky start to the season?
“The result doesn’t always go the way you want,” Lawson said. “If it did, everyone would be undefeated. Just have to have the appropriate level of understanding of seasons and how they ebb and flow.
When you’re going through a challenging portion of your season — I didn’t get dumber,” she added, with a sly smile to break through the tension.
The comment drew laughs from the gathered media. It also underscored something essential: Lawson’s belief never cracked. Not in herself or in her team.
“During that time, Coach, she took a lot for us,” Jackson said in February, reflecting on Duke’s early season struggles. “It was not coaching, it was simply us. So we just really had to buy in and take accountability at some point. We couldn’t let her hold everything by herself. We had to have her back, because she always had our back.”
Senior guard Taina Mair agreed. Both she and Jackson cited the Blue Devils’ December loss to LSU as a “turning point.”
“We understood what we needed, what it took to win, and we weren’t that far away,” Mair said in February. “So I think that’s what we told each other. And I think, in that moment, the script flipped.”
Part of that was belief, yes, but also Lawson’s messaging. The losses were visible. The growth, she insisted, was measurable. And her job wasn’t to panic, but to translate — show her players the growth she saw on film, in practices and in the data.
Eventually, Lawson figured, the results would catch up.
She was right.
This story was originally published March 6, 2026 at 6:05 AM with the headline "From 3-6 start to No. 1 in ACC: How Kara Lawson got Duke turned around."