Over at the Fayetteville Observer, Rodd Baxley has some thoughts on Duke’s recent scrimmage.
The early book on Duke is going to be – already is – that it won’t be possible to replace Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach. And generally speaking, that’s obviously true.
The thing is though that Duke has had to replace great players on a regular basis and this year is no different.
However, Jon Scheyer has proved to be a keen judge of talent, and also masterful at finding players who fit together.
In the recent scrimmage, Maliq Brown didn’t play as he’s still recovering from shoulder surgery and will be out a while longer yet.
The teams were split up with Cayden Boozer, Darren Harris, Nik Khamenia, Sebastian Wilkins and Patrick Ngongba on the white team and Caleb Foster, Dame Sarr, Isaiah Evans, Cameron Boozer and Iffy Ufochukwu wearing blue.
A lot we already assumed: Cameron Boozer looked great. Patrick Ngongba is a sophisticated threat as a passer and scorer.
The other freshman impressed as well, with Dame Sarr showing immense athleticism and Nik Khamenia and Cayden Boozer know how to move the ball. Sebastian Wilkins may be further along than many of us thought.
Then there’s Darren Harris, who may be the best pure shooter on the team, which, with Isaiah Evans around, is really saying something. If he’s ready to compete, then there will be times that Harris and Evans could just force defenses to leave the inside to guard against threes.
It’s going to be a very different team, but it’s going to be fun to watch this group come together.