Earlier this season, Duke, the preseason No. 7 women’s basketball team in the county, looked nothing like the modifier.
A 93-77 loss to then No. 5 LSU in the ACC-SEC Challenge on Dec. 4 marked its fourth straight loss and the fifth defeat in its last five games. Three straight chances to pick up a quality win against top five opponents, including South Carolina and UCLA, ended in double-digit failure.
Sitting at 3-6 and outside the top 25 on that Thursday night in December, Duke coach Kara Lawson once again had to provide answers on what went wrong and why the team had become a stranger to its expectation. As would most coaches with so many games left in the season, Lawson expressed faith in her team’s ability to turn things around.
“For us, we haven’t had the start that we wanted,” Lawson said. “It’s our job to change it, right? I think it’s a really important concept not just in basketball, but in life, is ‘Don’t be so quick to judge.’ Because, the basketball season is long, and it’s like a living and breathing organism that changes daily, weekly and monthly. It’s hard as a human to like maybe see someone go through a struggle and then a month later, convince yourself that maybe they’re different because you just hold on to the fact that they struggled in the beginning, and you can’t get yourself to see them in a different way.”
Said Lawson, “I think we’re changing and developing, and I think we can grow into a really good team.”
Time has told, and Lawson wasn’t just giving coach speak. She was right.
Since the loss to LSU, Duke won 17 straight games and has brought itself on the brink of its first regular season ACC title since 2013.
Of course, defensive improvements have made a huge difference.
After giving up an average of 66.8 points to its first nine opponents, Duke is allowing 58.7 points per game (third in the ACC), including 55.2 points per conference matchup (first in the ACC) as of Monday. With Sunday’s 53-51 loss to Clemson, the Blue Devils have held 13 conference opponents under their scoring average by 10 or more points even without All-ACC defender Jadyn Donovan, who has been out for the season with a lower body injury since Dec. 18.
Duke, first in the ACC in opponent 3-point percentage, is tied for fifth in the nation with USC for blocks per game (6.1), and sophomore forward Toby Fournier has been at the forefront of that, ranking second in the conference and 12th in the nation with an average of 2.2 blocks.
“(Fournier’s) one of the top defensive players in the league,” Lawson said. “The thing about her, which makes her different from a lot of players, she impacts the game even if she doesn’t play great offensively.”
But as defense has always been key to the identity of Lawson’s teams, the Blue Devils’ offensive growth has been just as important in their resurgence.
Duke scored an average of 68.8 points in its first nine games which has improved to 75.1 points overall and 77.2 in ACC play, a jump from last year’s mark of 70.7 points per conference matchup.
As a team, the Blue Devils have become consistently efficient scorers, going from five games shooting below 40% before the LSU loss to shooting above that mark in 17 of their last 18 games. Duke has also made at least four 3s in 10 straight games while shooting the 3 ball at a clip just under 36%.
While Fournier has consistently led the scoring effort all season, redshirt sophomore guard Riley Nelson has provided a spark for the Blue Devils’ offense.
Nelson, returning from missing all last season due to injury, entered the starting lineup immediately after the LSU loss. In her 18 starts, she’s averaging 11 points per game, including 12 games in double figures and two 20-point performances.
“Riley’s such a pivotal piece to our team,” Lawson said after Nelson’s career-high 23 points against Georgia Tech. “When she’s scoring like that, I think we’re a hard team to defend because we have so many talented scorers, and she’s just going to get better and better.”
With a win against Florida State at home Thursday, the Blue Devils can clinch the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament. Now ranked at No. 12 in the latest AP poll, Duke is projected by multiple outlets to be as high as a 3-seed in the NCAA Tournament, which more fits the team’s current status.
