March is a month that feels nonstop with basketball. But perhaps no one will experience that more than Kara Lawson. Over the next few weeks, Lawson will globetrot from Atlanta to Puerto Rico to Durham, N.C., and beyond as she balances her coaching duties for Duke in the ACC and NCAA tournaments as well as Team USA in the World Cup qualifiers.
Though Team USA has already qualified for the World Cup, which will be played in Berlin in September, the team is still required to compete in the qualifying tournament in San Juan, Puerto Rico, next week. But for Team USA the extra reps are welcome. The team likely will feature several new players in the World Cup (the sport’s biggest international tournament outside of the Olympics), and Lawson will be making her first coaching appearance as the senior team’s head coach. On this World Cup qualifying roster alone, six players will make their senior national team debuts, including young stars Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers.
But these extra reps happen to come at the most important time of the college basketball season, meaning Lawson will be pulled in multiple directions and between her coaching duties.
Duke kicks off its ACC tournament run at 11 a.m. (ET) Friday in the quarterfinals against Clemson. The conference tournament’s semifinals and finals fall on the same two days as Team USA’s pre-World Cup qualifiers training camp in Miami. As long as Duke advances, Lawson — as well as Duke assistant Tia Jackson, who will be a Team USA assistant — will stay with the Blue Devils while training camp is run by the Team USA assistants Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase, Phoenix Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts and Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White.
If Duke, the No. 1 seed, advances to the ACC tournament title game, Lawson will meet Team USA in Puerto Rico on Sunday night, providing her and the team two days together before they hit the floor for the first game of the World Cup qualifiers.
From March 11-17, Team USA will play five games against Senegal, Puerto Rico, Italy, New Zealand and Spain. Back in Durham, Lawson’s Duke assistants will begin preparing the Blue Devils for their NCAA Tournament run. Team USA confirmed that Lawson will leave Puerto Rico before the conclusion of Team USA games, but a lead assistant has not yet been named for the span.
Whether Lawson takes in Selection Sunday on March 15 from Puerto Rico with her national team players or in Durham with her college team in uncertain, but it will be a crucial day as the Blue Devils, who earned a No. 3 seed in the most recent top-16 NCAA Tournament reveal, putting Duke in hosting position. The first round of the NCAA Tournament begins March 20.
If it seems like a lot of important basketball games are occurring in a relatively short amount of time, that’s because they are.
When USA Basketball selected Lawson as the head coach for the 2028 Olympic cycle in September 2025, it understood conflicts could arise. Some would be easier to navigate than others. Like back in December, when Team USA used a 10-day break in Duke’s game schedule to hold training camp on Duke’s campus. But finding those pockets are critical for USA Basketball as it works, with smaller time frames, to jell different groups of players during each Olympic cycle.
“As the year goes, and you’ve got two or three of these camps, maybe more, maybe less, all of a sudden you look back and you’re like, ‘Oh, we got like a solid 14 days together,’” said Sue Bird, the national team director and a five-time Olympic gold medalist. “It does carry over. The learning carries over. The understanding carries over. We definitely need reminders, but the feel of playing under a certain system carries over.”
USA Basketball was also ready to make these adjustments and coaching shifts because of what it learned when South Carolina coach Dawn Staley led the senior national team during the 2024 Olympic cycle. Cheryl Reeve acted as the senior team head coach on four different occasions — two during international tournaments, which would have caused Staley to miss at least three regular-season Gamecocks’ games had she decided to attend, and two college tours.
Some of these extra commitments, like playing in the World Cup qualifiers even when the team has already qualified, are required by FIBA. But they’re also seen as a necessary part of continuing the gold medal streak for Team USA.
The women have won eight straight gold medals, dating back to the 1996 Olympics. But as more players in the national team pool began competing overseas during the WNBA offseasons, a limited number of training periods were possible simply due to the logistics of player availability. After the 2018 Olympics, veterans Bird and Diana Taurasi pushed for the national team pool players to have more preparation time together. The national team added extra trainings, exhibition games and college tours. This meant players and coaching staffs had more national team obligations. And, when USA Basketball named a college coach as its head coach, more potential conflicts.
With Team USA ready to incorporate new, young players before its defense of four consecutive World Cup championships and Duke hoping to build on its ACC regular-season title, Lawson has a jam-packed and pressure-filled basketball schedule ahead. For the former point guard who learned how to lead teams under the pressure of Pat Summitt at Tennessee, perhaps there’s nothing that sounds better or more familiar.
