Tag: Kara Lawson

Duke women’s basketball posts video of five-star freshman dunking in practice

Toby Fournier, a five-star freshman on the Duke women’s basketball team, dunked in a practice highlight posted by the team on Friday.

The Duke women’s basketball team enters the 2024-25 season with some of the most impressive victories of the [autotag]Kara Lawson[/autotag] era fresh on the mind, and now, the Blue Devils add one of the best freshmen in the country to that mix.

On Friday, the Blue Devils posted a social media clip of senior guard Vanessa de Jesus lofting an alley-oop off the backboard before freshman Toby Fournier grabbed the rebound and dunked.

Fourner, a 6-foot-2 Canadian, was the 10th-ranked player in the Class of 2024 on espnW’s HoopGurlz Recruiting Rankings. She was one of two five-star commitments in the cycle, although fellow 6-foot forward Arianna Roberson will miss her freshman season with a knee injury.

Lawson also landed Maryland’s Riley Nelson, a former five-star prospect from the Class of 2023, out of the transfer portal while retaining six of the team’s seven leading scorers from last season.

After Duke defeated a top-10 NC State team at home late last season before beating the 2-seed Ohio State Buckeyes in the NCAA Tournament to advance to the Sweet 16, expectations seem to keep climbing in Durham.

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Duke women’s basketball will play Kansas State in Las Vegas to start Ball Dawgs Classic

The Ball Dawgs Classic revealed its four-team bracket on Friday, pitting Duke women’s basketball against Kansas State for the first round.

The Ball Dawgs Classic, a women’s basketball tournament set for Las Vegas this November, revealed its four-team bracket on Friday, and the Duke Blue Devils will open against Kansas State.

The Blue Devils and Wildcats will face off at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time on November 25th.

In the third full season of Kara Lawson’s tenure last year, the Blue Devils won 22 games. Duke staged a massive comeback over North Carolina, upset NC State for a top-10 victory, and knocked off 2-seed Ohio State to reach the Sweet 16.

The upward trajectory continued this offseason with Kara Lawson winning her third Olympic gold medal, this time as an assistant for Team USA, and incoming five-star freshman Arianna Roberson winning gold with the Americans at the FIBA U18 AmeriCup. Lawson also recruited five-star forward Toby Fournier from Canada and Maryland transfer Riley Nelson, a five-star prospect from the Class of 2023.

Oklahoma and DePaul play each other on the other side of the bracket. The winners of the two preliminary games play each other in the championship two days later on November 27.

If the Blue Devils defeat Kansas State, Duke basketball could play a game in Las Vegas for three straight days. The men’s basketball team plays Kansas on November 26.

Duke women’s basketball announces open practice at Cameron Indoor Stadium this October

Duke women’s basketball announced on Wednesday that it would host an open practice for fans on October 5 at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Duke basketball loyalists are certainly counting down the days until Countdown to Craziness, but the women’s basketball team will play in front of a crowd at Cameron Indoor Stadium the next day as well.

The team announced on Wednesday that it would host an open practice at the iconic stadium on October 5, the day after the kickoff fan event.

Additional details about the open practice were not made available, but the 2023 open practice at Cameron Indoor began at 9:30 a.m. with doors opening a half-hour before.

It’s been a few months since Duke’s big upset over Ohio State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, but the stars of Durham remained busy this offseason. Head coach Kara Lawson won her third Olympic gold medal, this time as an assistant for Team USA women’s basketball, and pulled in two five-star freshmen and a former five-star talent from the transfer portal. Arianna Roberson, one of those five-star forwards, won gold with the American team and the FIBA U18 AmeriCup.

After 48 wins over the last two seasons, expectations remain high for the fourth full season in the Lawson era.

Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson accomplishes an Olympic first

Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson has three Olympic gold medals as a player or a coach, and she made history on the way there.

Duke women’s basketball coach [autotag]Kara Lawson[/autotag] won her third Olympic gold medal in France this summer, and she made a little history in the process.

After Lawson coached the U.S. women’s 3×3 basketball team to a gold medal in Tokyo three years ago, she became the first coach to win gold in both 3×3 and traditional 5×5 basketball.

Granted, 3×3 basketball also debuted in Tokyo, so there isn’t an extensive list of 3×3 gold medal winners, but history can be forged by pioneers. A first is a first.

Las Vegas Aces stars Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum played on both teams for Lawson, becoming the first players to accomplish the feat, but Lawson was the only coach on both staffs.

Lawson also won an Olympic gold medal as a player in 2008, and she became the fifth American to ever make Team USA as a player and a coach when she joined this year’s staff as an assistant.

Lawson already posted a photo with her gold medal to social media, a trophy she might show off at the Countdown to Craziness in October.

Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson posts photo with Olympic gold medal

Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson, who served as an assistant coach for Team USA, shared a photo of her third Olympic gold medal on Sunday.

For the third time in her career, [autotag]Kara Lawson[/autotag] won a gold medal at the Olympic Games on Sunday.

The United States took down France in the gold medal game by a single point, 67-66. Lawson, an assistant coach on the team, posted a selfie with her gold medal to X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) after the medal ceremony.

“Never gets old,” Lawson wrote in her caption. “Mission accomplished.”

Lawson also won a gold medal with Team USA as a player in 2008, and she became the fifth American woman in history to appear on the Olympic team as both a player and a coach. She also coached the U.S. women’s 3×3 basketball team at the most recent Olympics in Tokyo, another gold-medal-winning squad.

Three other Duke Blue Devils won gold on the Olympic basketball court this year. [autotag]Chelsea Gray[/autotag] played for Lawson on the women’s team, and [autotag]Jayson Tatum[/autotag] became the first Duke men’s basketball alum with multiple gold medals. You can even include Blue Devils legend Grant Hill, the managing director for Team USA on the men’s side.

Lawson returns to Durham for this fall’s Countdown to Craziness on October 4, the debut for her 2024-25 team.

Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson helps Team USA win gold medal

The United States defeated France 67-66 in the Olympic women’s basketball gold medal game on Sunday, giving Duke coach Kara Lawson her gold.

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.

Lawson debuts her 2024-25 squad at Countdown to Craziness on October 4 before her team’s schedule gets underway a month later.

Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson becomes fifth former Olympian to coach U.S. team

Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson will become the fifth former Olympian to also coach on the American team this summer in Paris.

With the opening ceremonies underway, Kara Lawson is officially back at the Olympic Games.

After helping the United States win the gold medal in women’s basketball in 2008, Lawson accepted a position as an assistant coach with the team for this summer’s tournament in Paris.

The job makes Lawson the fifth woman to ever compete for the United States in women’s basketball and later return to coach the team. She joins Dawn Staley, Pat Summitt, Anne Donovan, and Jennifer Gillom on the esteemed list.

If Duke fans need more reasons for confidence in Lawson than they already have, that list includes nothing but champions. Summitt, of course, won eight national titles at Tennessee. Staley has already won three of her own at South Carolina, including two of the last three, and Donovan led the Seattle Storm to a WNBA title in 2004.

Despite Paris marking her official return to the 5×5 basketball stage, Lawson did win a second gold medal in Tokyo three summers ago. She served as the inaugural U.S. head coach in the first-ever edition of Olympic 3×3 basketball, helping an American squad of Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young, Allisha Gray, and Stefanie Dolson win gold.

Lawson will join forces with former Duke star Chelsea Gray as the United States looks to clinch yet another gold medal.

Duke women’s basketball signee Arianna Roberson excels against Puerto Rico for USA Basketball

Arianna Roberson, playing for the U.S.A. in the FIBA U18 Women’s AmeriCup, put together an impressive game against Puerto Rico on Tuesday.

Five-star 2024 women’s basketball prospect Arianna Roberson isn’t playing in Durham quite yet, but she’s still impressing basketball fans on a global stage.

Roberson is with the United States at the FIBA U18 Women’s AmeriCup in Colombia this week, and she showed off her talent during a Tuesday game against Puerto Rico. The women’s basketball team shared a quick highlight from her 10-point, seven-rebound game through social media the following morning.

Duke fans can see a sneak peek of the post production that the 6-foot-4 forward will bring to Cameron Indoor Stadium. A teammate fed Roberson the ball, and the future Blue Devil quickly worked her way through a move, backing down her defender with a single dribble before spinning around for the open shot. The decisiveness and speed of her motion stood out on camera.

The impressive highlight makes sense, considering that Roberson slotted in as the 17th-ranked player in the class according to the HoopGurlz Recruiting Rankings from espnW.

Roberson is one of two five-star prospects in Duke’s 2024 recruiting class alongside the Canadian Toby Fournier, who sits 10th on the espnW rankings.

Duke women’s basketball will play South Carolina next season

As a part of the 2024-25 ACC/SEC Challenge, Duke women’s basketball will travel to South Carolina, the winner of two of the last three national championships.

The Duke women’s basketball team gets a chance at the sport’s ultimate upset in 2024-25.

The team announced on Wednesday that, as a part of the 2024 ACC/SEC Challenge, the Blue Devils will travel to South Carolina to play the Gamecocks in December.

Dawn Staley’s program won two of the last three national championships, including an undefeated 38-0 season last year. South Carolina also won a national championship in 2017 and reached the Final Four in 2023, the only year it didn’t cut down the nets recently.

The Gamecocks roster gets even scarier next season despite star senior Kamilla Cardoso headed to the WNBA. Each of the team’s five other players who averaged at least nine points will be back, and MiLaysia Fulwiley (the team’s second-leading scorer with 11.7 points per game) was a freshman last season.

Duke, for its own merit, had the best season during head coach Kara Lawson’s tenure last year. The Blue Devils upset Ohio State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, reaching the Sweet 16 as a No. 7 seed behind one of the best defenses in the country.

The game will be played on Thursday, December 5.

Former Maryland guard Riley Nelson, a five-star high school recruit, commits to Duke

Riley Nelson, the former Maryland guard and the No. 18 player in the Class of 2023, announced her commitment to play for Duke next season.

Kara Lawson’s team continues to grow stronger.

Riley Nelson, the former Maryland guard, announced her commitment to the Duke women’s basketball team through social media on Monday morning.

According to the Instagram post from the team, Nelson already signed her letter of intent, so the declaration is official.

As a freshman with the Terrapins, Nelson averaged 5.1 points, 1.3 rebounds, and 0.8 assists in 14.0 minutes per game. She scored at least 10 points in three of her 16 appearances, including a career-high 15 points against Niagara and 11 points against Nebraska.

Nelson, a five-star recruit coming out of high school, was the No. 18 player in the 2023 HoopGurlz Recruiting Rankings. Her commitment gives Duke four of the top 30 players from that class after Jaydn Donovan (No. 3), Oluchi Okananwa (No. 27), and Delaney Thomas (No. 29) committed to Lawson out of high school.

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The Blue Devils are also one of the few teams in the country to not lose a player to the transfer portal this offseason. One year after a run to the Sweet 16, Lawson’s team could be set to turn heads in 2024-25.