Miami defeated Duke 61-55 Thursday night in the ACC Tournament second round, ending Kara Lawson’s first tournament run and likely Duke’s season. It was a bitter pill to swallow, considering that Duke led most of the game against a team they beat 58-49 earlier in the season, at Miami.
To be honest few observers really expected a deep tournament run. Duke entered the 2022 ACC Women’s Tournament on a slide, five losses in six games, eight in 11 games. Ranked as high as 15th nationally and in the mix to host the first round of the NCAA Tournament in early January, Duke plummeted all the way to the 10th seed in a conference that only gives first-round tournament byes to the top nine seeds.