The NCAA Tournament is returning to Durham.
Duke women’s basketball, following a strong regular season and impressive ACC Tournament run that ended with the Blue Devils hoisting the conference trophy in Greensboro, N.C., will host the first two rounds of the national tournament in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Duke received a No. 2 seed on Selection Sunday, marking the second time in the last three years that the Blue Devils will host games in Durham. The Blue Devils aren’t the only Triangle team to host, either. No. 3-seed North Carolina and No. 2-seed N.C. State also earned high enough rankings to bring visiting squads to town.
“This is a special night to be with your team and watch the brackets be unveiled and see where you're placed,” head coach Kara Lawson said in an evening press conference. ”And now, after waiting for a week to finally have an opponent in front of us, our team is very excited to be the No. 2 seed in the region and just looking forward to getting our journey started on Friday.”
Duke will play No. 15-seed Lehigh in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, before potentially taking on a challenging foe in the winner of Durham's other first-round game between No. 7-seed Vanderbilt and No. 10-seed Oregon.The Ducks will bring with them another recognizable opponent for Lawson’s group, as former North Carolina guard Deja Kelly transferred over for her final season.
After that, it will be onto Birmingham, Ala., for the Sweet 16 and Elite 8, where the Blue Devils could find themselves up against a familiar foe: North Carolina. The Tar Heels will host in the same region, and rounding out the top seeds are No. 1-seed South Carolina and No. 4-seed Maryland.
It was a season of ups and downs for this Duke squad, which took down tough groups both in and out of a challenging ACC. Following two regular-season wins to close out the campaign against North Carolina and Florida State, the Blue Devils carried that momentum through the conference tournament. Duke went on a revenge tour against all the squads it had lost to in the regular season, taking down Louisville, Notre Dame and N.C. State to earn the crown.
The festivities will begin later this week, as the Blue Devils hope to keep rolling in Cameron Indoor Stadium against Lehigh Friday.
“I think hosting just validates the body of work that you've put together this season,” Lawson said. “One of only 16 teams in the country get to have that honor, and so it's cool that our team has earned that in the eyes of the committee.”
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Martin Heintzelman is a Trinity junior and Blue Zone editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.