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Coach Lawson Media Availability Quotes (1.21.25)
1/21/2025 9:09:00 PM | Women's Basketball
DURHAM, N.C. – Duke women's basketball head coach Kara Lawson met with members of the media Tuesday afternoon via Zoom. Lawson recapped the Blue Devils' 2-0 week before previewing Duke's upcoming games at SMU (Jan. 23) and Georgia Tech (Jan. 26) this week.
HEAD COACH KARA LAWSON
OPENING STATEMENT
"I'm looking forward to this week. Challenging for us, obviously, road-road again, which we had a couple weeks ago. My goal is to win both of them this time. Hopefully we can do that. We know it'll be a challenge. Both teams present a lot of different issues for us. I haven't watched a ton of Georgia Tech yet, so can't give you detailed stuff on them, but SMU has our full attention: a lot of athleticism, guards that can really score, physical, great rebounding team and they can disrupt on the defensive end as well. It'll be a tough game for us. Hopefully we can get back and refocus on what we need to do and understand that games are different on the road. I don't know how to explain it but they're just different and you have to kind of grind them out. That's usually how it how it works. Proud of the week we had but it has kind of already expired in my book. We're already past it. We have got to move on and try and get a couple more wins."
ON PREPARING FOR SMU AND MAKING SURE THE TEAM STAYS LOCKED IN…
"Well, I'll disagree with you there. I don't think we're gonna play down to anybody. I think we have to raise ourselves to their level of intensity. We have a lot of respect for them as an opponent and we know that they are fully capable of beating us. If we don't match their level of aggressiveness and their level of intensity, we will lose the game. That's how it works in our league. Just having one day of prep so far, we have focused on being physical, being aggressive, being disciplined, because they have some players that can really attack you and score and make you look bad. We want to win. We don't want to look bad. We want to play well. So, the challenge is, can you play at that level time and time again? We show that we did it last week, but it is not like we start the game up 10-0 because we won both games last week. We start the game at 0-0, so we've got to be ready play. They're a team that can beat anybody in our league. They've shown the ability and we're going to have to be ready for them."
ON ASHLON JACKSON AND HER IMPORTANCE TO THE TEAM'S SUCCESS ...
"Ashlon had a really aggressive start to the season. I thought there was a lull in there in December and early January where she didn't play up to the level she's capable of. I thought this past week, she got back closer to her level that she's capable of. I'm hopeful that she stays there. She's a really important player for us. She's one of our leaders. She communicates well. She's a two-way player. She obviously can knock down the three-point shot and does so at a very efficient clip. We need her being confident and aggressive to be at our best. That's her challenge. I've said that to her privately, and I'm saying that publicly now too, she's got to be one of the best players on the court every game. That's her job. That's her role. When she does that, we're a better team. We're a more confident team on both ends. So, that's her job but also my job to make sure she's not settling for less than what she's capable of each game."
ON THE POINT GUARD PLAY OF TAINA MAIR...
"The first thing is that she's improving defensively as the year has gone along. We need to be very good at the point guard position on defense. That was one thing that we identified as a staff coming into this year that we needed to improve upon, and Taina has taken that to heart and grown on the defensive end. She's gotten better as an on-ball defender and she's gotten better as an off-ball defender. I'm not saying that because she gets those steals. Steals are a small part of defense. I think just overall, her understanding of our scheme and what she's doing is improving. She's in the right places more times than not, and she's a competitor. I think that helps her on the defensive end too. She loves to compete. Offensively, she has really taken to heart that her job is to do whatever it takes to help us win. Some nights that's going to be scoring like it was against Stanford, the way they were playing the ball screens, she had a lot of space coming off those. Then some nights it's going to be passing. It's always going to be managing the game and commanding the team. That's the job of a point guard through the course of the game. As a junior, she's grown in that understanding of where her teammates are most successful out on the court, how to deliver them the ball and continue to play at a good pace. I would say those are the areas that she's excelling in right now."
ON THE TEAM'S ABILITY TO STAY POISED IN HARSH ROAD ENVIRONMENTS...
"I don't know that anything's going to surprise us on the road this year. Not that we won't struggle with anybody here or we'll win every road game, but we've kind of been in every type of environment that you can be in. We've played against a lot of different teams on the road. Just going back to all those games, as you're saying, the road games are flashing through, from Liberty to Maryland to South Dakota State to South Carolina to USF and then getting into conference play as well. We've been to Boston College and to Carolina and to Virginia. We understand what it takes to win on the road. You still got to go out there and do it, even if you understand what it takes, you still have to go out there and play well enough to win and execute. But for me, with a young team, I wanted to expose them in non-conference to it, so that they had a feel for what it would be like. It's very important as a competitor that you know yourself in pressure situations and in tough moments. It is one thing to say, "oh yeah, it's a tough moment" but like, you need to know what your tendencies are when it gets tough. Are you someone that loses confidence? Are you someone that rushes? Are you someone that forgets stuff? Who are you when it's hard and when it's tough? And then, once you know that, you can now work to grow and fix it. The problem is, is we spend most of our lives avoiding all of those moments, so we never figure out who we are in those moments, because we just set up our entire life to avoid getting rushed or losing our confidence. We spend our entire life avoiding being in those moments, and then when we get in them, we're shocked that we're not good in them. Why are you shocked you were never in them before? You haven't practiced, you don't have the reps, you haven't figured out who you are when the rubber meets the road. You got to figure that out. You figure that out and you see when it's on the road and the other team goes on to run, I get sped up. That might be one player's coping mechanism, right? Like, I like to get sped up. That is valuable that we know that now, so the next time they're in that moment, they can actively try to not get sped up: whether that's breathing, whether that's talking to themselves, whether that's me as a coach, recognizing that too and saying something to them, like saying "slow down." Whatever it is, it is about putting them in all these different types of situations and teaching them about themselves. So, since humans won't do that to themselves, then I'm the fairy godmother. I kind of do that to them, right? I do that to them, and then they can see, and we talk about it. We watch the film, and we have these conversations where we talk about what were you feeling here? Like, why? Why did, why did this happen? Why did you play so poorly here? It is not to make them feel bad. It's to gather data for them to self-regulate and understand who they are in those moments and then fix it. If you never played the road games, then how do you know how they're going to react in the road games? Then you get an ACC and now it's the first big environment, and now everything hits the fan, and you're like, "I don't know what happened." I don't want to not know what's going to happen. I need to know before, right? Then we can work on fixing it. That's not something that will resolve in one rep or two reps, not one year or two years with some of them. Some of them, it takes a long period of time. I don't know of another way. If there was another way, I guess I do it. The only way I know is to put them in all these environments, and they're forced to sink or swim. And if they sink, we figure out why, why did they sink? And then we talk about it, and then we work with them to learn how to swim in those situations."
ON TAINA MAIR'S DEFENSE AND ABILITY TO STEAL THE BALL...
"She came in with a knack to do that. We noticed it pretty early on last year that she could time those strips perfectly. I think what's come together for her this year is that she has better positioning now to do it more often. She always had the timing to be able to strip the ball, but she would be out of position a lot. If you're out of position for the strip, that's now a foul, so keeping your body in front and being in the right spot gives you the chance to make the play. That's what we talk about a lot. Don't try to go for every steal but if you're in the right spot, the situation is naturally going to happen, and you'll be able to get something. With our players that are new in our system, it's really about understanding what spot they are supposed to be in defensively, and when they're in that spot, what's their body position. If they can get that stuff down without having to think about it, now they can play instinctively and go get the ball. With Taina now a year and a half into our program, she has been able to play more instinctively on defense because she knows where she's supposed to be."
To stay up to date with Duke women's basketball, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and subscribe to the YouTube channel by searching "DukeWBB."
50 Seasons of Duke Women's Basketball
The 2024-25 season marks the 50th anniversary of Duke women's basketball, a program rich in tradition, excellence and success. From its early foundations to national dominance, the Blue Devils have become a powerhouse in both athletics and academics. Join us in commemorating five decades of sisterhood, championships and iconic moments as we set the stage for the next 50 years. For more information, please visit goduke.com/WBB50
#GoDuke
HEAD COACH KARA LAWSON
OPENING STATEMENT
"I'm looking forward to this week. Challenging for us, obviously, road-road again, which we had a couple weeks ago. My goal is to win both of them this time. Hopefully we can do that. We know it'll be a challenge. Both teams present a lot of different issues for us. I haven't watched a ton of Georgia Tech yet, so can't give you detailed stuff on them, but SMU has our full attention: a lot of athleticism, guards that can really score, physical, great rebounding team and they can disrupt on the defensive end as well. It'll be a tough game for us. Hopefully we can get back and refocus on what we need to do and understand that games are different on the road. I don't know how to explain it but they're just different and you have to kind of grind them out. That's usually how it how it works. Proud of the week we had but it has kind of already expired in my book. We're already past it. We have got to move on and try and get a couple more wins."
ON PREPARING FOR SMU AND MAKING SURE THE TEAM STAYS LOCKED IN…
"Well, I'll disagree with you there. I don't think we're gonna play down to anybody. I think we have to raise ourselves to their level of intensity. We have a lot of respect for them as an opponent and we know that they are fully capable of beating us. If we don't match their level of aggressiveness and their level of intensity, we will lose the game. That's how it works in our league. Just having one day of prep so far, we have focused on being physical, being aggressive, being disciplined, because they have some players that can really attack you and score and make you look bad. We want to win. We don't want to look bad. We want to play well. So, the challenge is, can you play at that level time and time again? We show that we did it last week, but it is not like we start the game up 10-0 because we won both games last week. We start the game at 0-0, so we've got to be ready play. They're a team that can beat anybody in our league. They've shown the ability and we're going to have to be ready for them."
ON ASHLON JACKSON AND HER IMPORTANCE TO THE TEAM'S SUCCESS ...
"Ashlon had a really aggressive start to the season. I thought there was a lull in there in December and early January where she didn't play up to the level she's capable of. I thought this past week, she got back closer to her level that she's capable of. I'm hopeful that she stays there. She's a really important player for us. She's one of our leaders. She communicates well. She's a two-way player. She obviously can knock down the three-point shot and does so at a very efficient clip. We need her being confident and aggressive to be at our best. That's her challenge. I've said that to her privately, and I'm saying that publicly now too, she's got to be one of the best players on the court every game. That's her job. That's her role. When she does that, we're a better team. We're a more confident team on both ends. So, that's her job but also my job to make sure she's not settling for less than what she's capable of each game."
ON THE POINT GUARD PLAY OF TAINA MAIR...
"The first thing is that she's improving defensively as the year has gone along. We need to be very good at the point guard position on defense. That was one thing that we identified as a staff coming into this year that we needed to improve upon, and Taina has taken that to heart and grown on the defensive end. She's gotten better as an on-ball defender and she's gotten better as an off-ball defender. I'm not saying that because she gets those steals. Steals are a small part of defense. I think just overall, her understanding of our scheme and what she's doing is improving. She's in the right places more times than not, and she's a competitor. I think that helps her on the defensive end too. She loves to compete. Offensively, she has really taken to heart that her job is to do whatever it takes to help us win. Some nights that's going to be scoring like it was against Stanford, the way they were playing the ball screens, she had a lot of space coming off those. Then some nights it's going to be passing. It's always going to be managing the game and commanding the team. That's the job of a point guard through the course of the game. As a junior, she's grown in that understanding of where her teammates are most successful out on the court, how to deliver them the ball and continue to play at a good pace. I would say those are the areas that she's excelling in right now."
ON THE TEAM'S ABILITY TO STAY POISED IN HARSH ROAD ENVIRONMENTS...
"I don't know that anything's going to surprise us on the road this year. Not that we won't struggle with anybody here or we'll win every road game, but we've kind of been in every type of environment that you can be in. We've played against a lot of different teams on the road. Just going back to all those games, as you're saying, the road games are flashing through, from Liberty to Maryland to South Dakota State to South Carolina to USF and then getting into conference play as well. We've been to Boston College and to Carolina and to Virginia. We understand what it takes to win on the road. You still got to go out there and do it, even if you understand what it takes, you still have to go out there and play well enough to win and execute. But for me, with a young team, I wanted to expose them in non-conference to it, so that they had a feel for what it would be like. It's very important as a competitor that you know yourself in pressure situations and in tough moments. It is one thing to say, "oh yeah, it's a tough moment" but like, you need to know what your tendencies are when it gets tough. Are you someone that loses confidence? Are you someone that rushes? Are you someone that forgets stuff? Who are you when it's hard and when it's tough? And then, once you know that, you can now work to grow and fix it. The problem is, is we spend most of our lives avoiding all of those moments, so we never figure out who we are in those moments, because we just set up our entire life to avoid getting rushed or losing our confidence. We spend our entire life avoiding being in those moments, and then when we get in them, we're shocked that we're not good in them. Why are you shocked you were never in them before? You haven't practiced, you don't have the reps, you haven't figured out who you are when the rubber meets the road. You got to figure that out. You figure that out and you see when it's on the road and the other team goes on to run, I get sped up. That might be one player's coping mechanism, right? Like, I like to get sped up. That is valuable that we know that now, so the next time they're in that moment, they can actively try to not get sped up: whether that's breathing, whether that's talking to themselves, whether that's me as a coach, recognizing that too and saying something to them, like saying "slow down." Whatever it is, it is about putting them in all these different types of situations and teaching them about themselves. So, since humans won't do that to themselves, then I'm the fairy godmother. I kind of do that to them, right? I do that to them, and then they can see, and we talk about it. We watch the film, and we have these conversations where we talk about what were you feeling here? Like, why? Why did, why did this happen? Why did you play so poorly here? It is not to make them feel bad. It's to gather data for them to self-regulate and understand who they are in those moments and then fix it. If you never played the road games, then how do you know how they're going to react in the road games? Then you get an ACC and now it's the first big environment, and now everything hits the fan, and you're like, "I don't know what happened." I don't want to not know what's going to happen. I need to know before, right? Then we can work on fixing it. That's not something that will resolve in one rep or two reps, not one year or two years with some of them. Some of them, it takes a long period of time. I don't know of another way. If there was another way, I guess I do it. The only way I know is to put them in all these environments, and they're forced to sink or swim. And if they sink, we figure out why, why did they sink? And then we talk about it, and then we work with them to learn how to swim in those situations."
ON TAINA MAIR'S DEFENSE AND ABILITY TO STEAL THE BALL...
"She came in with a knack to do that. We noticed it pretty early on last year that she could time those strips perfectly. I think what's come together for her this year is that she has better positioning now to do it more often. She always had the timing to be able to strip the ball, but she would be out of position a lot. If you're out of position for the strip, that's now a foul, so keeping your body in front and being in the right spot gives you the chance to make the play. That's what we talk about a lot. Don't try to go for every steal but if you're in the right spot, the situation is naturally going to happen, and you'll be able to get something. With our players that are new in our system, it's really about understanding what spot they are supposed to be in defensively, and when they're in that spot, what's their body position. If they can get that stuff down without having to think about it, now they can play instinctively and go get the ball. With Taina now a year and a half into our program, she has been able to play more instinctively on defense because she knows where she's supposed to be."
To stay up to date with Duke women's basketball, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and subscribe to the YouTube channel by searching "DukeWBB."
50 Seasons of Duke Women's Basketball
The 2024-25 season marks the 50th anniversary of Duke women's basketball, a program rich in tradition, excellence and success. From its early foundations to national dominance, the Blue Devils have become a powerhouse in both athletics and academics. Join us in commemorating five decades of sisterhood, championships and iconic moments as we set the stage for the next 50 years. For more information, please visit goduke.com/WBB50
#GoDuke
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