Duke Blue Devils women's basketball

Now 4-1 on the season.

Uh, the Blue Devils were kind of scratching at that door of the top 25, and a lot of people were saying, "Well, why aren't they already? This is the defending ACC champion.

They're undefeated." They were top 10 in strength of record there for a moment, and unranked, which is unheard of.

But ultimately, when push comes to shove, if this team's gonna lose to a one-and-three Georgia Tech team, probably didn't deserve to be ranked, at least not yet, unless they really, really prove it from this point forward.

[laughs]

... because South Carolina goes to Duke for the SEC-ACC Challenge to take on Kara Lawson and the Blue Devils, who I think are gonna be real good, Jared.

Yeah.

This-

I, I think she's due for a big season.

Um, that, that's gonna be a hard game, I think.

I, when you talk about, you know, South Carolina got better, I would say Duke is the other team that got better.

Yeah.

Former USC Trojan.

I think she's a coach at Duke Women's Basketball right now.

Excellent basketball analyst.

You're at least half right.

[upbeat music] Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where the world would be a better place if we all had a Caitlin Chen on our proverbial bench.

It's Friday, October 9th, and on today's show, Duke and Team USA head coach Kara Lawson joins us to talk about leading the national team to gold at the FIBA World Cup, how she stays locked in and ignores outside noise, and why her Duke team is still a bit of an unknown as the NCAA season nears.

Plus, a dramatic reading, $100 million, and we've got a fever that won't come down.

It's all coming up right after this.

On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[upbeat music]

Joining us now, she's the head coach of the Duke women's basketball team and the US women's national basketball team, who she just led to gold at the FIBA Women's World Cup.

A former Lady Vol at Tennessee under Pat Summitt, and the fifth overall pick by the Detroit Shock in the 2003 WNBA draft, she was traded to the Sacramento Monarchs, who she helped to a title in 2005.

I'm very excited about that.

I'm excited, I've been excited about Duke.

I love Kara Lawson.

And then last year I didn't make it to a game, but there's a team in my backyard here, Fairfield University, that had an incredible season.

Uh, you wanna be battle tested too.

Well, yeah, you'll see some teams, Duke is one of them, that always gets credit every year for playing just hard, hard, hard, hard, hard.

And you'll see some people take the other tack and kinda ease into it, for lack of a better term.

And I think, I think Wake this year did a really good job kind of splitting the difference, and I think it, hopefully knock on wood, as you said, or if they can stay healthy it'll be a good balance.

What's the gy- what's the, which ACC gym is the hardest to play in that you've played in so far?

The hardest? Ooh.

No, Duke, Duke was, Duke was tough.

I'm not gonna lie.

Uh, it was a, a, a really, really fun time, um, and you got to know a little bit of the personality of these guys.

And also, we'll talk a little bit about the women playing a, a scrimmage themselves, uh, what, you know, what we saw from a top five Duke women's basketball team.

We'll have that for you in just a moment.

[upbeat music] What's up, everybody? It's Gretzky.