CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you were to ask Duke women’s basketball’s Toby Fournier about teammate Delaney Thomas, she’d tell you the 6-foot-3 forward is “the mother” of the Blue Devils‘ squad.
Even more so, she’d tell you the Charles Town, West Virginia, native is the team’s standard-setter.
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“She’s kind of that standard for work ethic,” Fournier said at ACC Tipoff on Monday, Oct. 6. “You know, when I see Delaney running and she’s so far down the court I’m, like, okay, maybe have I to pick it up a little bit and run that hard as well. She sets a standard, and I think it helps the rest of the team meet that.”
Thomas is one of four returning starters on sixth-year head coach Kara Lawson‘s team this coming season. She started all 37 of Duke‘s contests last season, averaging 7.1 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game. She also led Duke with 12 drawn charges, anchoring a defense that powered the Blue Devils to a 29-8 record, the ACC Tournament title and an Elite Eight appearance.
It comes after a freshman season that saw Thomas play in 33 of Duke’s 34 games, averaging 5.0 points and 3.5 rebounds in 16.8 minutes off the bench.
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Now, as she enters her third season under Lawson, Thomas is embracing somewhat of a new role: being a constant voice for the younger Blue Devils. Duke has four first-time players on its 2025-26 squad in freshmen Emilee Skinner and Anna Wikstrom along with redshirt freshman Arianna Roberson and redshirt sophomore Riley Nelson.
“Being able to play freshman year was a big thing,” Thomas said at ACC tipoff. “Freshman, sophomore year, that’s a lot of experience coming together. I need to be a voice this year, especially for our younger ones. … Just being a constant voice for them, a place of knowledge as well because I’ve been there, been in their shoes, to help them through that, I think that’s going to be really important.”
It is a role Thomas embraced with Fournier during her freshman season.
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“She was always there for me, especially when there was so much to develop and so much to work on in terms of just plays and being a new player, especially in a competitive league like the ACC,” Fournier said.
Duke opens its 2025-26 season on Monday, Nov. 3 in Paris, France, against Baylor in the 2025 Oui-Play Paris. And as the season-opener nears, Thomas’ vision remains clear.
“I think personally it’s important for me to be what my team needs from me every day,” Thomas said. “And as a team, we just want to go as far as we can go together and just see where it takes us.”
Anna Snyder covers Duke for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at asnyder@gannett.com or follow her @annaesnydr on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Duke women’s basketball’s Delaney Thomas to be ‘constant voice’ in 2025-26
