Wearing her purple suit with sparkles glistening all over, Kim Mulkey enters the Golden 1 Center with her heels clacking on the hardwood.
As she crosses halfcourt, she meets Duke’s basketball coach Kara Lawson and is greeted with a handshake, hug and a smile.
A few hours later, they’d shake hands again after Duke’s Ashlon Jackson drained a three-pointer as the buzzer sounded to give the Blue Devils an 87-85 win and end LSU’s season.
During that short interaction before the game started, Mulkey and Lawson caught up from past endeavors, including when Mulkey tried to recruit her in college.
“‘Kara, you may not remember this, but I watched you at AAU, and I wrote you a personal note when I was an assistant at Louisiana Tech,’ and she said, ‘I absolutely remember it,’” Mulkey said. “‘I was playing at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana,’ and I said, ‘yes, you were.’”
Duke was a team that was foaming at the mouth to get their revenge from a regular season loss to LSU three months ago. You would never have guessed by the reaction between the two great coaches.
When Jackson’s shot went in, Lawson put her hands up in awe but then deliberately made her way to halfcourt to shake Mulkey’s hand.
“I’m not a big reactor in that way,” Lawson said. “Just wanted to shake Kim’s hand and express what a great season they had. In moments of victory or defeat, I think it’s really important to be respectful, and it’s something we try to do all the time, whether we win or whether we lose, we’re going to have respectful interaction.”
In sports, we often see people separate the athlete or the coach from the person.
Athletes might’ve played together or against each other during AAU and high school, while coaching trees have roots so deep that you can find a connection at every corner.
In this game, we lose sight of how relationships can be built and the ties that people can form off the court.
For Mulkey and Lawson, these handshakes were more than just an interaction between two coaches; they were signs of respect.
The two started their careers in very different ways.
Mulkey has been coaching for a long time. She started her coaching career at her alma mater, Louisiana Tech, in 1985 as an assistant and landed her first head coaching gig in 2000 with Baylor.
In her head coaching journey, Mulkey has tallied four national championships (2005, 2012, 2019 and 2023), been named AP Coach of the Year three times (2012, 2019, 2022) and was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
With a record of 775–130 (.856), she has solidified herself as one of the greats in basketball history.
As for Lawson, she’s fairly new to coaching, beginning in 2019 as an assistant with the Boston Celtics before becoming Duke’s head coach in 2020.
Through her six seasons with the Blue Devils, she’s had a record of 121-49 (.712), won the ACC Tournament in back-to-back seasons (2025 and 2026) and was named the ACC Coach of the Year this season.
However, before she started her career as a coach, Lawson was known for her impact on the court as a player.
Playing under the legendary Pat Summitt, she spent four years with Tennessee, averaging 13.7 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists.
She was named an AP All-American twice and named first team All-SEC team four times with the Volunteers. She was then selected fifth overall by the WNBA’s Detroit Shock, but was traded to the Sacramento Monarchs five days later.
A major storyline heading into the tournament was the homecoming to Sacramento for Lawson after she stuck with the Monarchs from 2003 to 2010 and won a championship in 2005.
During that championship season, Lawson averaged eight points while shooting 43.9% from the field. In the finals, she played a crucial role and was third on the team in points with 10.3 per game.
Her role in the franchise’s sole championship will forever be remembered by Monarchs fans everywhere, despite the team dissolving in 2009.
“I love the city so much,” Lawson said. “I’m telling you, everywhere I’ve gone, as we’re walking down the street, people are like, ‘Hey, man, thanks for that title,’ ‘thanks for that championship.’”
While her affiliation now holds strong with the Blue Devils, Sacramento will always have a place for her.
“Such a love affair with the city and its people and its fans,” Lawson said. “It’s one of the great basketball towns in the country, really, to be here and to be able to come back now as a coach, even though this city saw me as a player, it’s really cool.”
Despite the loss, Mulkey understands the impact Lawson had on the city of Sacramento and has shown respect for what she’s done with Duke.
“I have nothing but respect for what she has done. I didn’t like her, honestly, as a TV analyst, but I like her as a coach,” Mulkey said with a smile.
