Lexi Gordon was starting over. So was Celeste Taylor.

So were 13 other players and four coaches.

Duke women’s basketball was starting over.

After playing only four games in 2020, the Blue Devils made the decision to stop the season due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. During the extra-long offseason, first-year head coach Kara Lawson got to work, securing eight transfer students and signing two freshmen. So, even the three remaining players who had already spent time at Duke were entering a new situation. It was a completely new team.

“There were definitely nerves, especially because everything was so unknown,” said Gordon, who transferred from UConn to Texas Tech in 2019 before eventually landing at Duke. “There were so many different people coming from different places. And you wonder, ‘Are we going to mesh? Am I going to like my teammates?’”

But Lawson didn’t put together a roster of misfits. Those eight transfers were like puzzle pieces packaged in the wrong boxes — Lawson and her staff carefully sifted through the boxes, plucking out the pieces that would be perfect for the Duke puzzle.

The players had no way of knowing what the finished roster would look like when they each selected Duke. Instead, they relied on faith. And if you’re going to put your faith and basketball career in someone’s hands, Kara Lawson is a good choice. A coach with 12 years of WNBA experience and two Olympic gold medals — one as a player and one as Team USA’s 3×3 coach — knows what it takes to win.

“I think ultimately what led me to Duke was easily just that Kara is who she is,” said Taylor, a Texas transfer. “I knew she was going to build something that was going to be hard to turn down.”

The rebuilding process was something that appealed to both Taylor and Gordon, who are averaging 11.7 and 9.1 points per game, respectively, for the Blue Devils this season.

“For me, that was one of the biggest things that I looked at personally,” Taylor said. “Whether it was rebuilding a program, or just coming in and changing the culture of a program to a winning culture, to just have a competitive nature and competitive mindset.

“I think that is so important because we are going to be part of a legacy.”

When the 2021-22 season started, the legacy of this Duke team probably wasn’t on anyone’s radar outside of its own locker room. But slowly, the Blue Devils began to turn heads. They opened play with seven-straight wins and, with a 79-64 defeat of No. 9 Iowa on Dec. 3, reentered the national conversation.

Duke, which hadn’t been ranked in the top 25 since the 2018-19 preseason, surged to No. 19 in the AP poll that week.

“We weren’t really trying to prove to the world, to the rest of the basketball community that we can compete with teams like Iowa,” Taylor said. “But we were really just reiterating it to ourselves that we know the type of players we are, and we know the type of team we can be by the end of the season.”

Even if it wasn’t their intent, the Blue Devils did prove something. And two weeks later, when they stuck with No. 1 South Carolina before eventually losing 55-46, they proved it even more.

Duke was once again a program to be reckoned with.

The team has been a fixture in the top 25 since then, despite three more losses that followed the South Carolina defeat. Freshman guard Shayeann Day-Wilson, the 41st-ranked recruit in the Class of 2021, has been a revelation for the Blue Devils, leading the team with 12 points and 3.5 assists per game. Elizabeth Balogun, a senior transfer from Louisville, has also found a home at Duke, recording a team-high 20 blocks to go along with 10.3 points and 4.7 rebounds per game.

Balogun game-winner btw 🍿

😈 @eli4bathball 😈 pic.twitter.com/Oo4n3u3tmp

— Duke Women’s Basketball (@DukeWBB) January 2, 2022

Their return to the AP poll may have felt like a longtime coming to Duke fans, but from the moment they stepped on campus, the players knew it was only a matter of time.

“From the first week, we kind of made it a point of emphasis to get to know each other, hanging out and learning about each other,” Gordon said.

Players went to church together, they saw movies, they tried new restaurants or cooked. Once they knew each other as people, the Blue Devils started to learn about each other as players.

“We meshed pretty quickly,” Taylor said. “On the court, it takes time for players to learn each other’s tendencies and what they like and how they want to be spoken to. Just what motivates them. That takes time more than anything, but as of now, we are doing a pretty good job.”

Right now, Duke is eighth in a tough ACC that boasts five ranked teams (No. 3 NC State, No. 5 Louisville, No. 16 Georgia Tech, No. 20 Notre Dame and No. 21 Duke) and two teams just outside of the top 25 (Virginia Tech and North Carolina). The Blue Devils have the opportunity to jump North Carolina, who’s tied with Boston College for sixth in the ACC, on Thursday when they square off in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

With so many new faces, this will be the first time most of the Blue Devils experience the historic rivalry.

A year ago, Gordon and Taylor were on opposite sides of a rivalry, playing for Texas Tech and Texas. Taylor, a junior, spent two years at Texas, but realized during the pandemic that it was just too far from home. Durham, N.C. Is still an eight-hour drive from her home in New York, but that’s nothing compared to the 27 hours it took for her parents and siblings to get to Texas.

“My biggest thing is that I’m very independent,” she said. “But sometimes you just need someone to lean on.”

Taylor needed her family, and the move to Duke has allowed them to attend more games so far this season than over her two years at Texas.

For Gordon, the switch to Duke was more about a personal challenge and a deep connection with her coach. It wasn’t that she didn’t get along with her coaches at UConn or at Texas Tech, but something was missing.

“That bond wasn’t as strong as it could have been, and that is on me,” said the graduate student. “It’s a two-way street.”

With Lawson, the connection comes easily.

“I feel like our bond and our relationship is a little more special just because we are getting things started (with the program),” Gordon said. “It’s getting stronger and stronger.”

All eight transfers have their own reasons for choosing Duke as their second-chance school. But while they’re here now, they know the final destination has yet to be reached.

“You come here to win championships,” Gordon said. “So when I graduate and come back, I want to come back and see a program that we started, and we built a culture of winning within. And I feel like, with Kara and her staff and the people that we are recruiting, we can definitely do that.”

Eden Laase is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports. She previously ran her own high school sports website in Michigan after covering college hockey and interning at Sports Illustrated. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

Cameron Brink already has her rookie of the year pick for the upcoming WNBA season, and it’s Indiana-bound star Caitlin Clark. 

In the latest edition of Kelley on the Street, host Kelley O'Hara caught up with Brink in New York hours before the Stanford phenom went No. 2 overall to the Los Angeles Sparks at the 2024 WNBA Draft. When O’Hara asked who would win the WNBA's rookie of the year, she answered without pause.

"Caitlin Clark," she said, while a fan commented that she thought Brink would take home the award. Brink later added that the extra foul granted to WNBA players will be "good for me."

"I hope it’s me," Charisma Osborne, who was later drafted by the Phoenix Mercury, said when asked her ROY prediction. "But, I don’t know — we’ll see."

Watch more of Kelley on the Street:

Maria Sanchez issued a statement on Thursday, confirming recent reports that she has requested a trade from the Houston Dash. 

In it, she revealed that the club has been aware of the request "since late March."

"This has all taken a toll and isn’t an easy thing to talk about, but I want to confirm that I’ve requested an immediate trade," she wrote. "My expectations and reasons have been clear. I trust that my current club’s management will honor my decision in a timely manner and proceed with accepting a trade."

"I’m eager to refocus and dive back into what I love most: playing football," she concluded.

Thank you, everyone, for the outpouring of kindness and support. pic.twitter.com/gcnN7dhCJU

— Maria Sanchez (@Maria17_7) April 19, 2024

Reports of Sanchez's trade request first surfaced on ESPN last week, and were later confirmed by multiple sources. 

In December of last year, Sanchez signed a three-year contract with the Dash valued at $1.5 million including bonuses and an option year. It was the largest contract in NWSL history at the time — a figure that would be eclipsed by multiple contracts in the following months. 

Sanchez spent the offseason as a restricted free agent, meaning that Houston could match any other team's offer to retain her rights. Should the Dash trade Sanchez, her current contract terms would remain intact, limiting potential buyers to teams able to afford to take on an inking of that size.

The Dash has yet to address the trade, instead reiterating to ESPN that Sanchez is "under contract, a choice she made in free agency at the end of 2023." 

Both the NWSL trade window and transfer window close tonight, April 19th, at 12 a.m. ET. The window will stay closed through the next 11 regular season games, reopening on August 1st, 2024.

The four-time league champion Seattle Storm unveiled their new practice facility on Thursday, with Storm co-owner Lisa Brummel dubbing Interbay's Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance the team’s "new home."

"It's just such a special space," Brummel told Fox 13 Seattle. "I think when the players get here, it's gonna be overwhelming."

The sprawling 50,000-square-foot, $64 million property is just the second designated practice facility to be designed and built expressly for a WNBA team, with the Storm further noting that 85% of all design and engineering team members involved in the project's construction were women and people of color. The finished product holds two professional indoor courts, two 3x3 outdoor courts, a state-of-the-art locker room, and players' lounge, plus designated areas for strength and conditioning, kitchen, dining, and nutrition, and recovery. 

"This facility reflects our commitment to providing our athletes an exceptional environment that supports their growth, health, and performance," said Storm co-owner Ginny Gilder in an official team release. "It’s built for women, by women, embodying our dedication to leading the way in professional women’s sports."

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For their part, the team can't wait to make the faciilty their own.

"It's amazing," Storm guard Jewell Loyd told Fox 13. "Not having to drive everywhere around, knowing you have access anytime of the day to get into the gym, to workout." 

Head coach Noelle Quinn said she predicts the team is "never going to leave this building."

"Which is a good thing for me," she continued. "You talk about having an edge in performance. We want our athletes to not only perform on the court, but get whatever they need."

All of the Storm's staff and operations will now live under one roof, and the team also has plans to launch a youth basketball program operating out of the building.

The Caitlin Clark effect is quickly making its mark on the big leagues, as WNBA host teams around the country rush to upgrade their Fever games to larger arenas in order to accommodate surging ticket sales.

With Clark mere weeks away from her Indiana Fever debut, both the Las Vegas Aces and Washington Mystics have officially relocated their scheduled home games with head coach Christie Sides' squad. On Thursday, the Mystics became the latest to adjust their plans, moving their June 7th matchup from Entertainment & Sports Arena in Southwest DC to the more centrally located — and much larger — Capital One Arena "due to unprecedented demand."

The Mystics home court's capacity taps out at 4,200, while Capital One Arena — home to the Wizards, Capitals, and Georgetown Hoya's Men's Basketball — can fit nearly five times that crowd at some 20,000 spectators.

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"The move to Capital One Arena will allow for additional fans in the stands as well as premium hospitality options, including Suites and the all-new all-inclusive courtside Hennessy Lofts," the team announced via Thursday's press release.

The Aces were one of the first teams to switch venues, aiming to take on the Indiana Fever in front of as many as 20,000 fans inside T-Mobile Arena on July 2nd. That’s a sizable a boost from their home venue, which holds just 12,000.

For those still planning to face the Fever in their home arenas, ticket prices have skyrocketed. Previously scheduled construction has already forced the LA Sparks to relocate their first five games — including their May 24th clash with the Fever — to Long Beach State's Walter Pyramid. The temporary venue is quite the downsize, holding just 4,000 in comparison to Crypto.com Arena's near-19,000. As of Friday, the get-in price for that game started around $400.

Despite fans launching a Change.org petition urging relocation, the Chicago Sky say they're unable to move their June 23rd Fever meeting from Wintrust Arena's 10,000-seat facility to the 23,500-seat United Center due to a concert. Tickets for that game start around $325 as of Friday.