On March 18, 2017, the Blue Devils entered their NCAA tournament first round matchup with Hampton with hopes of starting a deep run into at least the second weekend as a No. 2 seed. But an ACL tear to a key player resulted in a second-round defeat and the end of the season.
Now a graduate student, point guard Kyra Lambert has missed the entirety of the last two seasons but her inactivity in the scorebook will change come tonight. Per a team release Tuesday morning, Lambert will suit up and make her much-anticipated return to the hardwood against High Point at 7 p.m.
“Kyra Lambert is an absolute warrior, relative to her experience and to what she’s gone through,” head coach Joanne P. McCallie said in a team release. “Many would not have kept working to get back. I can speak for the staff, team and the program: we couldn’t be more excited for Kyra and of course bringing her talents and everything that she has to this team.”
McCallie spoke about Lambert after Duke’s final exhibition game Sunday against Alaska Anchorage and spoke about how her graduate student was playing in practice.
“‘Kyra, you are the best you’ve ever looked,’” McCallie told Lambert after practice last Saturday. “Sometimes they say people come back and they might not have a step or whatever you want to say.”
Lambert hinted at a potential return in an Instagram post last night.
A former McDonald’s All American and consensus top-10 recruit coming out of Samuel Clemens High School, Lambert scored 6.2 points and contributed 2.8 rebounds and 2.5 assists in her first year in Durham. Lambert’s sophomore season saw an uptick in overall production in her 33 starts that season. The Cibolo, Texas native dropped in 7.8 points and 3.5 assists per game. In her freshman and sophomore seasons, Lambert averaged 1.1 and 1.7 steals, respectively.
After suffering the ACL tear, Lambert hoped to make it back for at least part of the next season. But in December of that year, McCallie announced on her radio show that Lambert would take a medical redshirt.
In October 2018, a team release stated that Lambert reinjured her knee and would miss the 2018-19 season as well.
Lambert is currently studying in the Fuqua School of Business in the Master of Management Studies program.
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