Kara Lawson reveals how Duke can bounce back after poor first quarter vs. UConn

Duke head coach Kara Lawson knew her team could get back in it against UConn, but the lady Blue Devils committed too many turnovers in the first 10 minutes.

Lawson’s crew committed six turnovers and trailed 10-6 after the first frame. It’s hard to make those mistakes against an experienced squad like UConn.

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Simply put, if Duke takes care of the ball, the Blue Devils will be in position to win in the end.

“Got to take care of the ball better,” Lawson said to ESPN’s Angel Gray. “Offensively, we’ve got to get into our actions quicker. So hopefully we can do that in the second quarter.”

Not only that, Lawson’s Duke squad shot three-of-12 from the floor in the first quarter.

“The second half of that first quarter we got some quality looks,” Lawson said. “We got some open threes. We just didn’t knock them down. It’s a long game. You know, I think the margin still manageable for us and we’ll see if we can get going on offensively.”

Lawson even alluded to those keys ahead of the game when she spoke to the media Friday.

“I mean, for us, things pretty much, our keys pretty much stay the same,” Lawson said. “We want to make things difficult defensively for people. Want to make people take challenged shots. Don’t want to give open ones. Want to control the boards. We need to take care of the ball. We’ve been some games good this year, some games not good this year taking care of the ball. Just play with great pace on both ends.

“That doesn’t change for us game to game. Obviously matchups, some teams make it harder in certain areas than others just based off of personnel. That’s pretty much what we do, we go in and try to be really good in those areas.”

Obviously, Lawson knew to contain UConn, you had to contain Paige Bueckers.

“I mean, she’s obviously a really talented player,” Lawson said. “Pretty complete in every area. I guess what stands out is there’s not a lot of weaknesses. You have to be really disciplined, really sound. Even when you do that, she’s good enough to still make plays.

“So I think it’s just being able to do it the whole game and trying to make things as difficult as possible for her.”