Duke women’s basketball coach [autotag]Kara Lawson[/autotag] has her gold medal.
The United States defeated France 67-66 in the Olympic gold medal match on Sunday, surviving a French buzzer-beater that turned out to only be a 2-pointer. The win gave Lawson, an assistant coach on Team USA, her third career Olympic triumph.
Lawson already made history just by being on the U.S. coaching staff. After she represented the United States as a player in 2008, another run to gold in Beijing, she became the fifth former Olympian to coach the American team.
The Blue Devils coach also helmed the U.S. women’s 3×3 basketball team at the previous Olympics in Tokyo, leading that squad to yet another gold medal.
The win offers an exclamation point on a phenomenal start to 2024 for Lawson. Her Blue Devils upset 2-seed Ohio State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and she landed two five-star prospects from the Class of 2024 and a former five-star from the transfer portal in Maryland’s Riley Nelson.
GOLDEN AGAIN 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Cl85rgRRjS
— Duke Women’s Basketball (@DukeWBB) August 11, 2024
Lawson debuts her 2024-25 squad at Countdown to Craziness on October 4 before her team’s schedule gets underway a month later.