Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson did not sugar coat the Blue Devils‘ 2025-26 non-conference schedule.
“The schedule’s hard,” Lawson said on Tuesday, Sept. 23. “I think we play the hardest schedule in the league every year.”
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Of Duke‘s 11 non-conference opponents, nine made it to the 2025 NCAA Tournament with six finishing within the top 50 of the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings.
Duke opens its season on Monday, Nov. 3, vs Baylor in Paris as part of Oui-Play Paris 2025. It returns home for two games before going back on the road with trips to Liberty and South Florida. The Blue Devils will also face South Carolina and either UCLA or Texas in Las Vegas, Nevada, as part of the 2025 Players Era Women’s Championship. After their trip to Las Vegas, they then will play host to Kim Mulkey and LSU as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge.
Duke then closes out its non-conference slate hosting South Dakota State on Dec. 18, followed by a road trip to Belmont on Dec. 20 before opening ACC play at Syracuse on Sunday, Dec. 28.
“I mean, it’s a bear, but I need to know what I have. And I can’t find that out if I win by 60,” Lawson said. “I can’t figure out what you’re made of if we’re winning by 60. Like, I need to know. And I need to know before we start ACC play. If we have a goal of winning an ACC championship, I need to know what’s in the huddle. I need to know what they’re made of.”
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A tough non-conference slate is nothing new for the Blue Devils. Last season, they were on the road at Maryland, South Carolina and South Florida with neutral site contests against Kansas State and Oklahoma. Duke went 3-2 in those contests, losing by five points to Maryland and falling 81-70 to South Carolina.
“(Our non-conference schedule) might come with some losses, it could. But then at least I know,” Lawson said. “And I think that’s been key to us progressing through the year and getting to the second weekend in March the last two years, I think, because we took some bumps early and we saw the level that needed to be played at in order to win games in March.”
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The Blue Devils went on to finish the year 29-8, claimed the ACC Tournament title and reached the Elite 8, but Lawson is making sure her team doesn’t get caught up in last year’s results.
“This group has to earn it themselves,” Lawson said. “They don’t get to carry over the last year’s performance. So, they have to understand that and start over again.”
Duke returns four starters from last year’s team in Ashlon Jackson, Jadyn Donovan, Taina Marr and Delaney Thomas. It welcomes freshmen Emilee Skinner and Anna Wikstrom along with Pepperdine transfer Hailey Johnson. Lawson, who was named as the USA Basketball Women’s National Team Head Coach on Sept. 22, is entering her sixth season at the helm.
Fans can get their first look at the 2025-26 Duke women’s basketball squad at Countdown to Craziness on Friday, Oct. 3 at 7 p.m. ET at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
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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: Kara Lawson on Blue Devils’ non-conference slate
