Tag: Reigan Richardson

Duke women’s basketball narrowly misses top 10 of preseason USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll

USA TODAY Sports released its preseason women’s basketball coaches poll on Thursday. Check out where the Blue Devils ended up here.

USA TODAY Sports released the preseason women’s basketball coaches poll on Thursday, and the Duke Blue Devils ended up in the exact same spot as they did in the Associated Press rankings.

The Blue Devils came in 11th in the poll, finishing just eight points behind the Oklahoma Sooners for a spot in the top 10.

The South Carolina Gamecocks, the defending national champions after last season’s undefeated campaign, finished with all but four of the first-place votes to start the year in the top spot.

Looking at the ACC, only the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and NC State Wolfpack finished with more points than the Blue Devils. Those same two teams were the only two above Duke in the ACC’s preseason poll as head coach Kara Lawson and her team were picked to finish third in the conference.

After last year’s Sweet 16 run included a regular-season win over the Wolfpack and a second-round upset of the Ohio State Buckeyes, each of Duke’s top four scorers return for the 2024-25 season. Reigan Richardson, who led the roster with 12.4 points per game, was named to the Preseason All-ACC Team, and five-star freshman Toby Fournier led the Newcomer of the Year Watch List voting.

Check out the complete Coaches Poll below.

Rank School (Last Year’s Record) Points First Place Votes
1 South Carolina (38-0) 770 27
2 Connecticut (33-6) 734 3
3 Southern California (29-6) 716 1
4 Texas (33-5) 670 –
5 Notre Dame (28-7) 629 –
6 UCLA (27-7) 612 –
7 LSU (31-6) 567 –
8 North Carolina State (31-7) 533 –
9 Iowa State (21-12) 487 –
10 Oklahoma (23-10) 457 –
11 Duke (22-12) 449 –
12 Baylor (26-8) 434 –
13 Kansas State (26-8) 407 –
14 Ohio State (26-6) 405 –
15 West Virginia (25-8) 285 –
16 North Carolina (20-13) 263 –
17 Louisville (24-10) 261 –
18 Maryland (19-14) 254 –
19 Florida State (23-11) 177 –
20 Creighton (26-6) 150 –
21 Mississippi (24-9) 135 –
22 Kentucky (12-20) 106 –
23 Nebraska (23-12) 92 –
24 Indiana (26-6) 75 –
25 Alabama (24-10) 57 –

Receiving Votes

Gonzaga 49; TCU 37; Tennessee 32; Stanford 32; Iowa 28; Utah 25; South Dakota State 22; Oregon State 21; Princeton 18; Colorado 15; Virginia Tech 10; Illinois 9; Middle Tennessee 8; Fairfield 7; Richmond 6; California 6; Auburn 5; UNLV 4; Miami (FL) 4; FGCU 4; South Florida 3; George Mason 2; Saint Joseph’s 1; Michigan 1; Cleveland State 1

Duke women’s basketball star Reigan Richardson named to Preseason All-ACC Team

The ACC released its Preseason All-ACC Team for the 2024-25 women’s basketball season on Tuesday, and one Blue Devil made the list.

Reigan Richardson, the leading scorer on the Duke women’s basketball team last season, made the Preseason All-ACC Team on Tuesday.

Richardson averaged 12.4 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1.0 steals per game in 2023-24.

Her biggest moment came in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament when she scored 25 points against Richmond and 28 points against the Ohio State Buckeyes while shooting 58.3% from the floor and 62.5% from 3-point range. The two performances helped propel Duke to the Sweet 16 for the first time in six years.

Richardson put together seven 20-point performances throughout her junior season, including 23 points against Notre Dame and 22 points against Virginia Tech, and she added 15 points to Duke’s top-10 upset of the NC State Wolfpack in February.

Richardson earned 202 points in the All-ACC voting, the ninth-most in the conference. No other Blue Devil finished within the top 10 despite Duke finishing third in the predicted standings.

Fighting Irish star Hannah Hidalgo led the way with a staggering 921 points, including 62 Player of the Year votes on 79 total ballots. Two other Notre Dame players finished on the all-conference team while NC State and Florida State also had multiple players on the roster.

Duke women’s basketball starts 11th in preseason AP Poll

The Associated Press revealed its preseason women’s basketball rankings on Tuesday, and the Blue Devils start just outside the top 10.

The Associated Press released its preseason women’s basketball rankings on Tuesday, and the Blue Devils nearly cracked the top 10.

Duke starts the year at No. 11 in the rankings with 439 points, just two behind the Oklahoma Sooners for the 10th spot.

The Blue Devils reached the Sweet 16 for the first time under head coach Kara Lawson last season, taking down the No. 2-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes in the second round. That win came just weeks after a top-10 upset of the NC State Wildcats at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and Duke finished the season with a 22-12 record.

Five of Duke’s six leading scorers return to Durham, including Reigan Richardson (12.4 points per game), Taina Mair (9.8 points), and ACC Sixth Person of the Year Oluchi Okananwa (9.7 points). Lawson pulled in five-star freshman forward Toby Fournier and Maryland transfer Riley Nelson, a five-star recruit from the Class of 2023, to supplement the roster.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish, led by star sophomore Hannah Hidalgo, start the year as the highest-ranked ACC team at No. 6. The Wolfpack (No. 9), North Carolina Tar Heels (No. 15), Louisville Cardinals (No. 17), and Florida State Seminoles (No. 19) all made the top 25 as well.

Duke gets the 2024-25 season underway against Radford on November 4.

The best Duke women’s basketball photos from Countdown to Craziness

Get your first looks at the 2024-25 Duke women’s basketball team and head coach Kara Lawson after Friday night’s Countdown to Craziness.

The Duke women’s basketball team carries heightened expectations into the 2024-25 season. After head coach [autotag]Kara Lawson[/autotag] and the Blue Devils beat a top-10 NC State team at home and upset the Ohio State Buckeyes en route to the Sweet 16, Duke retained six of its seven leading scorers.

Lawson picked up freshman forward Toby Fournier, a top-10 player in the Class of 2024, and former five-star prospect Riley Nelson from Maryland through the transfer portal. Even this week, 2025 five-star guard Emilee Skinner committed to the program.

The Blue Devils now look poised to make noise in the ACC, but on Friday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium, the weight of expectations were nowhere to be found. Lawson and her roster kicked off the Countdown to Craziness with a scrimmage, reintroducing fans to stars like Reigan Richardson and Taina Mair.

Here are the best photos of the Blue Devils from their season-opening exhibition in front of the Duke basketball fans.

Duke women’s basketball releases complete 2024-25 schedule

The Duke women’s basketball team looks poised for a big 2024-25 season. Check out the Blue Devils’ schedule here.

The Duke women’s basketball team released its complete schedule for the 2024-25 season on Tuesday, setting dates for the most important games of the year.

Duke plays the North Carolina Tar Heels twice, as they always do. The Blue Devils travel to Chapel Hill on January 9 before hosting UNC for the final home game of the year on February 27.

Defending ACC regular-season champion Virginia Tech comes to Cameron Indoor Stadium on December 8, and NC State, whom Duke stunned in Durham for a top-10 upset last season, now gets to play the Blue Devils in front of a home crowd on February 3

The Blue Devils already knew they would play South Carolina, the defending national champions who went undefeated last season, on the road on December 5 as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge.

The Blue Devils made the Sweet 16 last season after upsetting 2-seed Ohio State in the second round, and head coach Kara Lawson kept her four leading scorers from that roster. Add in five-star freshman Toby Fournier (who dunked in practice already) and former five-star prospect Riley Nelson from the transfer portal, and Lawson seems poised for her best season yet.

The men’s and women’s team make their debut for fans at the Countdown to Craziness on October 4 before the season-opener against Radford on November 4.

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 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.

Duke women’s basketball finishes 17th in final AP Poll

After a stunning second-round upset of Ohio State in the NCAA Women’s Tournament, the Blue Devils finished 17th in the final AP Poll released on Monday.

Duke women’s basketball ended the year 17th in the final AP Poll released on Monday.

The Blue Devils finished the season with a 22-12 record after they made the Sweet 16 in the Women’s NCAA Tournament, upsetting No. 2 seed Ohio State on the way there.

Duke ran into Connecticut, who won the Portland region, in the regional semifinal. Despite the loss, the Blue Devils held the Huskies to a season-low 53 points. No other tournament team held UConn below 69 points.

Leading scorer Reigan Richardson became the second Duke women’s basketball player with multiple 25-point games in the NCAA Tournament after she tallied 25 points against Richmond and 28 points against the Buckeyes in the second round.

Five other ACC teams ended the year inside the Associated Press’s top 25. NC State, a No. 3 seed who made the Final Four, finished fourth after its remarkable tournament run.

Notre Dame (11th), Virginia Tech (18th), and Syracuse (20th) also made the final rankings.

Can the Duke defense slow down Paige Bueckers?

Duke women’s basketball needs to slow down one of the best players in the sport on Saturday, but the Blue Devils might be suited to the task.

Let’s just get it out of the way: UConn’s Paige Bueckers is one of the best college basketball players of the last decade.

Bueckers was named the Player of the Year as a freshman in 2021, averaging 20.0 points. 5.7 assists, 4.9 rebounds, and 2.3 steals in her first season of collegiate basketball. She led the Huskies to the Final Four that season and the national championship game the next.

This year, after missing a full season due to injury, she’s picked up right where she left off. She’s averaging a career-high in points (21.8), rebounds (5.1), and blocks (1.4), and she’s still dishing out 3.9 assists per game.

She’s racked up two double-doubles through two tournament games, dropping 28 points on Jacksonville State and 32 points against Syracuse. She’s pulled down 10.5 rebounds and dealt 6.5 assists per game in the postseason thus far, and she had seven steals between the two games.

In postseason basketball, the sport’s best players can be absolute buzzsaws. Scheme, depth, balance, it can all be thrown out the window if your team doesn’t have anyone to stop Bueckers.

The Blue Devils might not have that problem.

Duke allowed 58.0 points per game this season, the best mark in the ACC and the seventh-best average of any Power 6 school. The Blue Devils are allowing opponents to shoot 36.9% from the floor and 32.0% from beyond the arc.

Kara Lawson’s squad has a strong track record against dominant guards, too.

Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair, an All-ACC First Team member who averaged 22.3 points per game (the third-most in the conference) got to play the Blue Devils at home in February. She finished 7/25 from the floor, one of just six conference games in which she finished below 30% for the game, and 1/7 from behind the 3-point line. The Orange only scored 45 points.

Florida State’s Ta’Niya Latson, another 20-point-per-game scorer and another All-ACC First Team guard, scored 15 points on 17 shots against the Blue Devils back in January. Duke won that game by 42 points on the Seminoles’ home court.

Even in Duke’s second-round upset of Ohio State, the Buckeyes’ star guard Jacy Sheldon couldn’t get off the ground. Sheldon averaged 18 points per game entering the contest, the third-best mark in the Big Ten, but she could only manage 13 points against the Blue Devils. Sheldon made five of her 13 attempts and just one of her four 3-pointers, and Ohio State went 1/11 as a team from distance.

A player of Bueckers’ caliber presents her own challenges. The only player Duke has seen on her tier this season is Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, a freshman who leads the conference in both points (22.9) and steals (4.6) while finishing third in assists (5.6). Hidalgo helped the Fighting Irish past Duke with a 23-point game in Cameron last month, but Duke lost that game by eight after losing the third quarter by 12.

The path for a No. 7 seed to make the Elite Eight would always be tough, Bueckers or not. However, if any 7-seed might have a path to slowing down the Huskies dynamic star, it would be the Blue Devils.

Duke becomes only school to win bowl game and reach both Sweet 16s this year

After Sunday’s victories, Duke is the only school to win a football bowl game and make the men’s and women’s Sweet 16 during this academic year.

There’s a real argument that the Blue Devils are having the best year of any athletic program in the country.

After the women’s basketball team upset Ohio State and the men’s basketball team throttled James Madison on Sunday, Duke became the only school to win a bowl game and make the Sweet 16 in the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournament during this academic year.

The Blue Devils beat Troy in the 76 Birmingham Bowl, a 17-10 defensive battle back in December led by interim coach Trooper Taylor. Duke’s football team has now won five consecutive postseason games dating back to 2015.

Junior guard Reigan Richardson has led the women’s basketball team through the postseason thus far. She’s averaged 26.5 points per game so far, including a 28-point performance against Ohio State, and she’s shooting 62.5% from beyond the arc through two games.

On the men’s side, freshman guard Jared McCain has played hero with a 30-point performance against James Madison. He made eight 3-pointers, the most by a Blue Devil in an NCAA Tournament game.