DURHAM, N.C. -- After his team lost to Duke on Feb. 19, the latest of 17 teams in a row to fall to the Blue Devils, NC State women's basketball coach Wes Moore summed up their winning streak: "They are who we thought they were."
To be fair, it wasn't always quite so clear. Back in early December, Duke had gone from No. 7 in the preseason to out of the rankings, having dropped six games in the first weeks of the season. By mid-February, the Blue Devils were back in the top 10 and on a roll. Or so it seemed.
Last week, Duke lost twice in eight days to end the regular season at 21-8. Now, heading into the ACC tournament and the Big Dance, the question is: Who are the Blue Devils, really? Perhaps the biggest enigma of the four major conference champions heading into Champ Week, Duke has one more chance to prove it's a legit contender in the NCAA tournament.
The top-seeded Blue Devils enter the ACC quarterfinals Friday at a crossroads. If they repeat as league tournament champions, they solidify their position in the NCAA tournament's top 16, ensuring they host the first and second rounds. If they don't, they will have to rebuild their confidence during March Madness.
"Disappointed, but as I told the team, what an incredible season they've had," coach Kara Lawson said after ending the regular season with a 74-69 loss at North Carolina on Sunday. "That doesn't make losing a game any less frustrating. But when it's appropriate, it's really important as a coach and as a player to zoom out. In the big picture, we've had a great three months."
Steady pragmatism has been Lawson's trademark since taking over the program in the summer of 2020 (Duke shut down its 2020-21 season after just four games due to lingering COVID-19 pandemic concerns). The Blue Devils went 17-13 in Lawson's first full season and have been an NCAA tournament team since. They reached the second round in 2023, the Sweet 16 in 2024 and the Elite Eight in 2025. They finished third in the ACC last year, then won their first league tournament title since 2013.
That success continued into the second weekend of March, when the Blue Devils fell 54-50 in the Elite Eight to eventual national runner-up South Carolina. Then Duke lost senior starter Reigan Richardson to graduation. One of its top reserves, Oluchi Okananwa, transferred to Maryland and another, Emma Koabel, missed this season after she suffered a knee injury over the summer playing for Team Canada.
Still, the Blue Devils brought back four starters -- seniors Ashlon Jackson and Taina Mair, and juniors Delaney Thomas and Jadyn Donovan -- plus leading scorer Toby Fournier, the 2025 ACC Rookie of the Year. Emilee Skinner, the No. 4-ranked recruit in the SportsCenter Next 100, was coming in. The tags as ACC favorite and Final Four contender -- Duke last made it that far in 2006 -- fit this group.
But things went sideways in November and December. Lawson had scheduled ambitiously, and Duke lost its four nonconference games against ranked teams. The Blue Devils fell to No. 16 Baylor in the Nov. 3 season opener in Paris and then to No. 2 South Carolina, No. 3 UCLA and No. 5 LSU between Nov. 26 and Dec. 4.
A month into the season, the Blue Devils were 3-6 -- and out of the Associated Press poll.
"I think what we learned from those games is there's going to be hard moments," said Fournier, who leads Duke in scoring (17.8 PPG), rebounding (8.2 RPG) and blocks (2.3 BPG). "There's going to be times where a lot of other teams would kind of fold in on each other and point the finger. What we learned is that it's so much better to do everything together than start blaming other people for your mistakes.
"It's important to keep that connectivity. At the beginning of the year, I think, maybe we weren't playing together. We learned from the losses that you can't win by yourself."
Rebuilding their season began Dec. 7 with a 70-54 win at Virginia Tech. It progressed from there, including a 59-58 win at Louisville -- which was then on a 14-game winning streak -- on Feb. 5 and a 72-68 victory over North Carolina on Feb. 15.
After the win against NC State four days later, Duke looked tantalizingly close to its first perfect ACC regular-season record since 2007. The Wolfpack's Moore, who coached in the state of Tennessee at Chattanooga for many years before taking over at NC State, paid former Tennessee player Lawson the highest compliment: saying her Duke teams reminded him of Lady Vols teams coached by the late Pat Summitt.
"I've told Kara this many times: [Summitt] would be proud of her," Moore said. "They defend and they rebound."
But their offense at times struggles. It happened in a 53-51 loss at Clemson on Feb. 22 that ended the winning streak. But with top challenger Louisville also losing two of its last three, Duke still won the ACC regular-season title, its first since 2013. It is the 13th such championship for the program and the first for Lawson. She pointed to that success despite the Blue Devils' short bench due to injuries; Skinner played in only three games early in the season and Donovan played just the first 11.
"That's something I'm really proud of," Lawson said. "I don't want an extra brownie for it, but I'm proud of my team with seven players being able to navigate the 18-game schedule and win the league."
With a full plate coaching both the U.S. national team and Duke, Lawson has an especially busy March. After the ACC tournament, she joins the U.S. squad as it plays in the World Cup qualifying tournament in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from March 11 to 17. She will leave that event a little early to return to Duke and prepare for the NCAA tournament.
Whether the Blue Devils go into it with another ACC tournament title will be decided in the next few days.
"In postseason basketball, everyone is more urgent," Lawson said. "Everyone's playing for something. There's still a lot for us to play for. There's a lot of growth that you can capture."
