NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON VS DUKE

March 20, 2026

Kara Lawson

Jordan Wood

Toby Fournier

Cameron Indoor Stadium

Duke Blue Devils

Media Conference

Duke 81, Charleston 64

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the Blue Devils. We have with us Head Coach Kara Lawson along with student-athletes Toby Fournier and Jordan Wood. We'll have an opening statement from Coach followed by questions for the student-athletes. Once they're done, they can go, and Coach will take questions.

Coach, the floor is yours.

KARA LAWSON: Happy to be advancing. That's the name of the game, obviously, this time of year. We still have things to work on, obviously, but confident that we'll do that in the next couple days.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. For both players, your thoughts on Taryn Barbot. Is she a power conference type player and just your overall thoughts on what she was able to do with 36 tonight.

TOBY FOURNIER: I would give credit to her. She had a really good game tonight. I think that it points to a lot of things we need to work on in our defense as well. I think that we're going to take things from this game and apply them to the next game and work on it in the next few days.

JORDAN WOOD: I think Toby covered it. I think she was really great. She did a good job of attacking to the basket. She's a key player for the team and brought a lot of energy. She's a great player.

Q. Knowing that the next game there will be taller posts, stronger physical play, what do you take from the game today for the next game?

TOBY FOURNIER: Again, I think there's a lot of things we need to apply from this game. Like you said, it might be more physical than it was today. I think in terms of that, there's things we need to work on, and we have a day to work on it, which is nice. That's just how March Madness is. It's going to be physical and aggressive. We're up for the challenge and are going to build on what we did today.

JORDAN WOOD: That's going to be for the rest of the tournament. Every game will be different. Depending on the scheme, making sure we're doing the things that we need to be doing.

Q. Toby, there was one point in the second quarter where you had two baskets sandwiched around a block on the other side. Did you feel like, offensively and defensively, things were working inside? And for Jordan, 5 for 5 on 3s. What was going with your stroke today?

TOBY FOURNIER: I didn't know that. Good job!

JORDAN WOOD: Thank you.

TOBY FOURNIER: Wow. Yeah, I think a lot of the time, defense will transition into the offense. For me, getting a good defensive stop helps me on offense as well. Like you said, that happened for me the whole game. Getting stops on defense transitioned into my post-up and how hard I was playing offensively as well.

For me, this game was a post-up game. They had a lot of smaller players, and I was able to use that to my advantage. Every game is something different you can use to your advantage. I was able to point that out today.

JORDAN WOOD: For me, I just feel like it's doing whatever I need to do to help the team. We talk about hitting open 3s or being ready for any shot that's given. My teammates did a great job of finding me. So I shoot -- every night, I'm trying to hit the shots. It's nice it paid off today. Thank you.

Q. Charleston's obviously a team that's done really well on the offensive boards all year. Today, they had 19. How do you feel about the way you guys were on rebounding today?

TOBY FOURNIER: I think rebounding is something that's always really important for our team. It's something we look at before games. During practice, we're always doing rebounding drills. It's something we need to work on. Like we said, there's lots of things we'll pull from this game and apply to the next game.

Kudos to them. They did a good job rebounding. They have a lot of guards that can rebound, and bigs as well. We need to box out rebounds and put that extra work into rebounding because it does pay off in the end.

Q. For Jordan and then Toby, I want you to talk about the emotions in front of the home crowd, hosting a regional. How do you and the team manage that so you don't come out too amped up with your hair on fire?

JORDAN WOOD: We always want to come out with great energy. It's hard to kind of manage the highs and lows of the games. But we do a huddle, and we just try to calm each other down. I think our crowd plays a big part of that. They're always cheering for us. We know no matter what's going on, they have our backs. I feel like our teammates support one another.

TOBY FOURNIER: For us, energy is super important. Something we work on every day. I think emotion is always a good thing as long as you channel it into a positive manner. For us, staying positive and in the right mindset and being able to work together and, like Jordan said, come together as a team, huddle up. Emotions will get high, they'll get low, especially during this time of year. Being able to handle that together, I know it's a home game but there's still outside noise. Not listening to that and staying with our group is important for our success during this tournament.

Q. Toby, I wanted to ask you about the beginning of the game. You had a bunch of points early. Talk about the ability of that start to establish Duke's ability to control the paint.

TOBY FOURNIER: It brings a lot of energy. Seeing the ball go in is really important and gives attention in the post. If they're double-teaming or doing certain things to stop that, we have outside shots. We were able to hit players like Jordan so they could shoot their 3s. She did a great job shooting 5 for 5 today. That's amazing.

Just being able to keep the attention in the post. If the attention goes to the post, being able to also kick that out. Manage between those two positions.

Q. Toby and Jordan, could y'all talk about turnovers. You had 20 turnovers tonight. When you face the LSUs, Nebraskas or Baylors, how will you build off of this performance and control the ball better?

TOBY FOURNIER: It's always a point of emphasis, being able to control the ball and get clean passes, being able to get the ball in in general. I think it's important and something we'll emphasize. Again, we've got to take everything from this game and apply it to the next game and focus on that.

Turnovers will be something we emphasize and will be something we can prepare for a little more for the next game.

JORDAN WOOD: I agree. It's a credit to Charleston and their defense. They're good and spread us out a little bit. Like Toby said, it's up to us to control the pace of the game and make sure we're making the right decisions.

THE MODERATOR: Jordan, Toby, thank you for your time.

JORDAN WOOD: Thank you.

TOBY FOURNIER: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Lawson.

Q. Coach, you said there's a lot that you can learn from this game. What are some of your specific takeaways in terms of what you need to do better going forward?

KARA LAWSON: I think you guys already hit on them in the questions to the players. They scored 64 points, and they shot 26 percent from the field, which is a really good field goal percentage defense.

How did they score 64? Well, they made 22 free throws. They got 22 points off our turnovers. They got 12 second-chance points. That's 56 of the 64 points. So they only scored eight points any other way, right?

So those are areas that we need those numbers to come down. We can't give up that many points at the free-throw line. We can't give up that many points off of turnovers, which means we can't turn it over, and then we can't give up the second-chance opportunities.

So those are three areas that we can be better, and we have been better.

Q. So your intensity towards the end of the game, what sparked that? Was it the players? Was it the way the game was being called? What caused you to go to the next level?

KARA LAWSON: I wake up intense. I'm always at the next level. That's how I am. There's an urgency about me. It's March. You want to win. You want to play well. You want to build momentum. No matter who's on the court, no matter what the score is, there's a standard by which we play. If we don't play that, then it's my job to get them to that level.

So that's not new to them, our players. That's how I am. So that was a normal day.

Q. Y'all had some foul trouble early on in the game. Can you speak to the players that were able to step up defensively in those situations and how they can take that lesson into the next games in this tournament?

KARA LAWSON: I thought Woody, I mean, the headline for Woody will be the 3s. I thought Woody defensively was really good today using her length. She's improved as the season's gone on. I don't know how many blocks she had. I guess it says two, but at 6'4", her length on perimeter players alters shots, and she's gotten lot better one on one defensively. So I thought she was really good.

I thought Wikstrom came in and was solid for us defensively. Gave us 13 minutes, made the right plays. So there was a lot to like about what those two did on that end of the floor and it's good to see. Anna obviously doesn't play a ton of minutes for us, but she came in ready to play today on both ends, and I was pleased with her performance.

Q. I had a question about your rotational decisions now that we're in the NCAA Tournament. Do you just go more specifically with individual match-ups, or do you just ride with your core five out there?

KARA LAWSON: I just try to go off of who's playing well and what do we need in that moment more so than have, like, a fixed idea. You have to see who's playing well.

We had quite a few not play well today so I wasn't going to watch them not play well. I was going to put somebody else in. That makes sense, right? So that's what it goes in. And maybe Sunday, chances are there will be some people that don't play well. I mean, that's the game. I'm not shocked we had players that don't play well. Every game as a coach, you have players that play well and players that don't play well.

You have to figure out what's going to work. Some of that's scheme as well. You might play a certain rotation or a combination because it's working against a group.

In the fourth, I'll be honest. I knew we were winning. I knew we were playing on Sunday so I wasn't going to get anybody to, like, 35, 36 minutes. Even if the margin was shrinking, I just made a decision, our job is to survive and advance. It's not to get a big win for the net anymore, and that doesn't matter anymore.

So I made the decision to kind of take the foot off the gas with about 7, 8 minutes left. That's why Wikstrom played 13 minutes. She didn't play a minute in the ACC tournament. I went with her because I knew we had another game on Sunday.

Q. Yesterday, you said that this isn't a perfect team, but you had fixed a lot of things. Obviously, today it sounds like you feel like there are still things to fix. Last year, you made the Elite Eight. Can you fix the things you need to fix with this team to get beyond that this season?

KARA LAWSON: It's not like a broken light bulb where you can just go to Home Depot and get it and twist it in. That's not how it works. So can you fix is what I'm trying to say. It's not a snap your fingers nature.

It's a gradual growth toward having a higher percentage of adherence to the scheme. So we're going to have mess-ups, right? We want to lower the amount of them. Like we're going to have turnovers. Like we had 20. But even if we play great, we still might have 10, we might have 12.

So it's really about shrinking those numbers down. I'm giving that as an example, turnovers. But shrinking those moments down where we have poor possessions. We want to have as few as possible. But these teams are good so you're going to have some of them. So it's not having zero tolerance for mistakes but having a low tolerance for them because you know that they're going to make some mistakes.

Q. Coach, talk to me a little bit about Taryn Barbot and where she would rank as far as other guards that you guys have played against this season.

KARA LAWSON: Oh, comparisons. That's how you get in trouble, saying someone is better than this player or not better than that player. She did a great job at the line today. She was 2 for 16 at one point but kept getting to the line. So at some point, they started going in for her. I thought we did a really good job on her except fog the fouling.

Anytime a player gets to the line 16 times, they'll have a big number on the point total. But, yeah, I'm not going to compare because then somebody's upset. Either she's upset or the guard I compare her to is upset. So, yeah, I'm not going to get into that.

Q. (No microphone).

KARA LAWSON: Listen, you're trying to get me in trouble. Have you seen Hannah Hidalgo play?

Q. Yeah.

KARA LAWSON: Okay.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for your time.