Duke players took a risk on Kara Lawson’s rebuild. Their reward? A return to the Elite Eight

Reigan Richardson didn’t answer the phone the first time Kara Lawson called.

Lawson, coming off her second season as Duke women’s basketball’s head coach, was recruiting Richardson after the rising sophomore chose to transfer from Georgia. It took Lawson a couple of tries to get Richardson to pick up. Richardson contends she was asleep, and always returned the call or sent Lawson a text when she was available.

They eventually connected — though Richardson is still bad about answering the phone, her teammates said Saturday — and they talked about much more than basketball. Lawson spent most of their time learning about the potential Blue Devil, and trying to convince her to join the program.

Whatever Lawson and Richardson spoke about, it worked.

Two years earlier, in July 2020, Duke hired Lawson amid the COVID-19 pandemic, tasking her with rebuilding the program after Joanne P. McCallie’s abrupt resignation. The goal? Get the Blue Devils back to the heights they saw in the early 2000s.

As second-seeded Duke prepares to face No. 1 seed South Carolina on Sunday at 1 p.m. for a shot at its first Final Four since 2006, the Blue Devils are excited to be here, and determined to play like it’s always belonged, fulfilling Lawson’s initial mission.

Earning trust early

Lawson said the hardest recruiting sells came early in her tenure, fresh off the change in leadership.

“They’re all hard, but as the years went on, there was at least — you could see something was happening. Two years ago, we played for the ACC Championship on the final day of the season. You could see that we were coming,” Lawson said. “(At) the beginning … there was nothing to see. Also — and this was true for every program but particularly hard for a coach that’s starting out — we were in a period for a year that you couldn’t leave campus to recruit. You couldn’t go watch games in person, you couldn’t sit face to face with players, so it’s hard to sell if you can’t even be in the same room and look them in the eye to talk about your program.”

Richardson, Ashlon Jackson and Jadyn Donovan were some of Lawson’s earliest recruits. Graduate student Vanessa De Jesus committed to Duke prior to Lawson’s hire and was the only recruit to stay with the program.

Despite the uncertainty, none of them felt like it was a tough decision. They connected with her on a personal level — Jackson called Lawson her coach before she was her coach — and believed in Lawson’s vision, determination, passion and toughness. There was a sense of comfort knowing Duke’s pedigree and felt confident she had what it took to return to the highest stages of college basketball. It was never difficult to picture.

“Her resume is unmatched; someone who’s been in every stage of basketball life that you want to be at. I mean, that’s pretty impressive,” Donovan said. “Other than me not really knowing much about Duke basketball, just a person who’s that impressive? You want to work with someone like that.”

A slow build

Lawson’s first season wasn’t easy. Duke canceled its 2020-21 season after playing just four games due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Blue Devils, with the forfeiture, officially finished last in the ACC. De Jesus is the only current player who was on that roster,

A year later, with the addition of Richardson and Jackson, Duke finished tenth in the conference and didn’t make the NCAA Tournament.

But Lawson and her core group have steadily elevated Duke back into the national conversation.

Duke has made three straight NCAA Tournaments — going to the round of 32 in 2023, the Sweet 16 in 2024, and the Elite Eight this season, to go with and two ACC title game appearances. This season, the Blue Devils earned their first conference championship and Elite Eight berth since 2013.

Speaking of national exposure: The program wasn’t ranked in the AP Top 25 during Lawson’s first season. It has spent at least one week as a ranked team in each of the past four years, including a perfect 20-week stretch this season.

‘Forever grateful’

Duke’s calling card under Lawson has been no surprise: The Blue Devils’ defensive numbers have ranked among the top teams in the nation all season. Duke held Lehigh and North Carolina to a combined 63 points in their NCAA Tournament games.

“I knew what we had,” DeJesus said. “Duke has been one of the greatest programs in college basketball forever, and I feel like that kind of a legacy is going to rebuild either way. I knew coach Kara, with her past of coaching at the highest level and also playing at the highest level, I had faith that hard work pays off. It just shows where we are now.”

After winning the ACC Championship, Lawson said she’s glad her journey with the team started with it at the bottom of the conference. It taught her how to be an effective coach, she said, and how to build a program. She was tasked with determining what the program’s foundation and core values would be.

It wasn’t a remodel, it was a full rebuild. That took calculated decisions about recruiting, expectations and development. Those decisions and leaps of faith are paying off.

“We weren’t good then and we were competing and recruiting against the top programs that were good, that were going to Final Fours, that were winning national championships,” Lawson said this week. “Those kids made a choice, a conscious decision to say, ‘Hey, I think Duke could be something. I think they can compete at the highest level, I know it won’t help right away but I feel like coach and her staff can help us get there.’

“The players that are sophomores and juniors made the choice for Duke when we weren’t in the tournament and we weren’t going to Sweet 16s. I will be forever grateful to them for that.”

This story was originally published March 29, 2025 at 1:53 PM.

Jadyn Watson-Fisher

The News & Observer