At one point, it felt like Kara Lawson’s Duke had forgotten how to win. They started the season with a disappointing loss to Baylor, but the real heartbreaker was coming next. West Virginia had 6 players ejected in the first half, and they still managed to beat them 57-47 without anyone on the bench the entire second half. But the worst was yet to come.

Duke went on a 4-game losing streak in which they lost each game by at least 13 points. Granted, it was against some of the best teams in the country, and this team was heading for a crash. While they have improved to a 0.500 record after the Syracuse win, this has been a disappointing start for a preseason top-15 team. Despite the poor start, Kara Lawson believes it might create a positive impact in the long run. 

“I talked to Kara Lawson after the game. It was their fourth consecutive win. It follows that four-game losing streak, and I was just like, ‘What have you seen out of your team now that’s different from that losing streak?’ And she talked about, because it’s Kara Lawson, like she always has these big picture things to compare it to,” Cassandra Negley said on Hoops 360.

Kara Lawson has always been about the larger-than-life references. The focus is to create a long-lasting system and team that will eventually succeed. Immediate success is often a by-product of that process rather than the main goal.

After the LSU loss, Lawson described the college basketball season as a “living and breathing organism that changes daily and weekly and monthly.” 

“What I will say is you test the strength of your relationship and your connectivity and adversity,” Lawson said after the Syracuse win. “So, I can’t compare the years, but what I can tell you is that we’re super close because we’ve been through it, and when you go through it, man, like if you’re not close, it’ll drop out of the bottom. And so that I’m proud of them that as we’ve navigated through adversity and we’ll have more, we’ll have more, but we stuck together.”

If you look beyond the box score and within the advanced statistics, they have not been as bad as the results might look like. According to Bartorvik, they are the sixth-best defense with an adjusted defensive efficiency of 93.2 and the 17th-best offense with an adjusted offensive efficiency of 122.3. So, it’s just a matter of time before things turn around for Duke, and the experience of the lows could have prepared them better for the rest of the season. 

“When they get through the grind of an ACC season, having that culture when you do get smacked in the mouth, inevitably again, you’re already going to be so much better equipped to get through that because you’ve been there before,” Caroline Fenton said in her support.

It gets much easier for Duke here compared to the likes of LSU and South Carolina. However, they still need to get the job done and forget about the disappointing start. And that is because…

Kara Lawson cannot afford losses anymore

The situation with Duke is improving, slowly but steadily. They dropped out of the AP Poll in week three. Duke isn’t in the picture yet. In the Week 8 poll, they still did not receive any votes. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Duke remained unranked but in the Others Receiving Votes category in this week’s USA Today Sports Coaches Poll. They are on a 4-game winning streak, including an away on the road 20-point win over Syracuse, who were 11-1 coming into this game. Since their record still reads 7-7, Duke now needs results.

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“Duke is going to have to continue to build that resume. You can’t keep getting a wake-up call. You can’t keep getting knocked down to get back up,” Fenton said. “So, great opportunities for Duke to prove themselves moving forward. So, I think the Duke New Year’s resolution is to not bottom out, continue the consistency that they have found over the last several weeks, and only continue to compound that through ACC play.”

They are still not out of the NCAA Tournament contention, yet. While ESPN bracketology currently leaves Duke out, they can still make a run in the ACC. They are still No.26 in the NET rankings, which will only improve after the Syracuse win. However, they have little margin for error from here on out. 

If Duke turns the ACC slate into multiple signature wins, they can move back toward a protected seed conversation. Lawson has been transparent about what this early stretch revealed about her team, but transparency alone won’t move Duke back into the national picture. As ACC play ramps up, the Blue Devils must now prove that the adversity they endured truly prepared them for what comes next.