Duke was one of the most hyped-up teams in the country. What happened?

After coming into the year with a preseason No. 7 ranking, the Blue Devils seemed poised for their best campaign yet under head coach Kara Lawson, with only a few losses to the transfer portal and just one starter graduating. 

Instead of soaring to new heights, though, the Blue Devils have struggled immensely. They dropped their first game of the season to No. 14 Baylor, then beat a few smaller programs in Norfolk State and Holy Cross before putting together one of the most remarkable upset defeats in recent memory — losing to a West Virginia team that saw six of its 11 available players ejected in a scuffle after the first-half buzzer sounded. 

After a win against Liberty, Duke has since returned to losing ways with four consecutive defeats — admittedly against three of the top five teams in the nation according to the AP Top 25. The Blue Devils, since Nov. 20, have lost to South Florida (85-72), No. 3 South Carolina (83-66), No. 4 UCLA (89-59) and most recently suffered a 93-77 defeat to head coach Kim Mulkey’s sharpshooting No. 5 LSU team — partly spearheaded by a scorned Flau’jae Johnson after a subpar experience playing for Lawson’s national team this past summer. After the fourth-straight defeat, the Duke skipper seemed optimistic about the games to come, chalking the struggles up to the quality of the opponents. 

“It’s been a challenging schedule,” Lawson said. “I mean, three of the top five teams in eight days in two different cities, right? That’s hard, but it’s been great for us to expose where we need to get to. And we’re getting better. We’re a lot better tonight than we were last week.”

Whether or not the exposure will eventually help, the reality is that right now, Duke hasn’t looked like itself. The defense has given up high point totals, an anomaly for a group that has traditionally played some of the best in the country, while the offense has floundered.

Want even more women’s sports in your inbox?

Subscribe now to The IX Sports and receive our daily women’s sports newsletter covering soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers. That includes Basketball Wednesday from founder and editor Howard Megdal.

Readers of The IX Basketball now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.

So what, exactly, has gone wrong for this Blue Devil team? What turned a promising roster that was ranked highly to start the season, a roster with a combination of returning vets and up-and-coming talent, into a group that hasn’t won a game since Nov. 16? It can be broken down into a few issues. 

Backcourt woes

While there weren’t many departures in the offseason for Lawson’s team, those that did leave were almost all guards. Reigan Richardson graduated, while Oluchi Okananwa, Vanessa de Jesus and Louann Battiston all hit the portal, heading off to Maryland, Notre Dame and Rice, respectively. 

Now, with a thin guard room further hampered by injuries, starters Ashlon Jackson and Taina Mair have had to pick up a lot of the slack. Against LSU, each played 38 minutes, and neither has played less than 32 in the past six games. With Emma Koabel out for the year with an ACL tear and five-star recruit Emilee Skinner limited with what Lawson has said is a leg injury of some sort — Skinner has dressed and warmed up with the team but played very little — there’s not much help coming off the bench for the guards. 

“[Mair and Jackson] kind of have to be iron women to play for us, because that’s where we are in our depth chart,” Lawson said after Thursday’s loss. “We just don’t have a lot of guards that are healthy.”

This is all without even mentioning the importance of Richardson and Okananwa to this roster last season. Richardson was a consistent starter, averaging 9.7 points per game and occasionally exploding for huge totals, like when she scored 35 on Oklahoma in a Thanksgiving matchup last season.

Okananwa, for her part, brought some serious spark off the bench. Despite her 5’10 frame, she was one of the best rebounders on the team and played with a wicked-quick motor that slotted in very well with Lawson’s offensive philosophy. Okananwa garnered 2025 ACC Tournament MVP honors for her work, as well as an ACC Sixth Player of the Year nod. Now, it’s clear that both of these losses were more significant than many expected.

Lawson, for her part, has suggested that Skinner could be the missing piece for Duke. 

“We’re without the services of Skinner,” she said after the loss to South Carolina. “And you may know her, you may not know her, but you’ll remember her when she starts playing.”

Struggles to step up

Another issue has been that of the returners, especially those expected to step into larger (or different) roles. While forward Toby Fournier has been strong to start the season, averaging 15.6 points per game and shooting 44.4% from three, some of her fellow frontcourt members have floundered.

Junior Jadyn Donovan, who started every game at Duke last season and 32 of 34 games her freshman year, has had a challenging beginning of the season. Donovan is averaging just two points per game and shooting 34.8% from the field, both career-low marks. Lawson suggested at the beginning of the year that the Upper Marlboro, Md., native would be playing more of a guard role, and it seems that Donovan has struggled to adapt. She went scoreless without attempting a field goal for the second consecutive game against LSU. 

Without much perimeter shooting and playing a position that often puts her in the corner on offense, Donovan has been unable to impact scoring the way she did in her first two years, with fewer opportunities to cut to the rim and grab boards. Her inability to shoot threes has hampered Fournier at times, too, as defenses can sag off Donovan when she’s behind the arc to double-team the sophomore standout. 

Broadly, Duke’s bigs have struggled on the boards. Against the Gamecocks, the Blue Devils lost the battle on the glass 43-35. Against a Bruins team lacking Lauren Betts, the margin was 43-33. With a rotating cast playing center by committee as redshirt Arianna Roberson ramps up into a more significant role in the frontcourt, a lack of a true oversized post player has hurt the squad from Durham. In the game against the Tigers, the hosts gave up 52 paint points.

On the bright side for this group, Riley Nelson, a highly-touted transfer from Maryland, has begun to acclimate to the Duke system. She scored 10 points against LSU and 14 against South Carolina. If the sharpshooting combo guard can continue to make an impact against top teams, she could be a valuable asset heading into conference play. Broadly, Lawson needs more players to leap into bigger roles, and she thinks it’s coming soon.

“Right now, it’s not enough improvement to turn the result for us, but you can’t help but watch Riley Nelson in two of the last three games … she’s starting to learn how to make plays against top competition,” Lawson said. “… And so that’s the development, that’s the growth … It happens as you’re playing and you’re getting reps. And Arianna is just a freshman. I mean, what is this? Her sixth or seventh game in college? And so she’s rapidly understanding what we need from her, and getting better and better physically.”

The IX Basketball, a 24/7/365 women’s basketball newsroom powered by The Next

The IX Basketball: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX Sports. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.

Not all doom and gloom

With all that said, Duke is by no means a team to be counted out. Many of the issues facing the Blue Devils are fixable. If Skinner can come back and make the sort of impact that Lawson has been advertising, the guard room will get some much-needed help. Roberson and Nelson will both continue to improve as they work through their early careers, providing perimeter scoring support and some rebounding. If Donovan can find a way to make the most of her role and score with more regularity, she could also certainly become a bigger threat in ACC competition. 

Lawson and her players certainly seem to believe they have all the pieces they need, and it might just be a matter of finally putting them together. It remains to be seen if they’ll be able to assemble the puzzle when it matters, but for now, this Duke team has remained optimistic.

“We’re in the mud right now, and that’s both physically and literally,” Jackson said Thursday. “Like it may feel bad right now. It may feel bad for all of us, mentally, physically, but in March, we’ll be on and popping, and that’s something that I honestly can’t wait for.”