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Duke basketball observations from Blue Devils’ summer scrimmage ahead of 2025-26 season
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- Duke basketball observations from Blue Devils’ summer scrimmage ahead of 2025-26 season
Summer has arrived, and so has a Duke basketball highlight video.
Fans of the Blue Devils can get an early look at the 2025-26 squad, which recently held one of its first summer scrimmages, on YouTube. The 3 ½-minute video was posted on Duke basketball's channel on July 11 and, as of July 21, has been viewed more than 41,000 times.
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Caleb Foster , Isaiah Evans , Maliq Brown , Patrick Ngongba and Darren Harris are Duke's five key returners. They'll be joined by five newcomers on Jon Scheyer's fourth team since taking over as head coach following Mike Krzyzewski's retirement.
Cameron Boozer headlines a five-player 2025 recruiting class, which also includes Cayden Boozer, Nik Khamenia, Dame Sarr and Sebastian Wilkins.
"While I like the competition, the competition can even go up," Scheyer said at the end of the video. "We'll get better and better. I'm excited to be your coach."
Without the full flow of the scrimmage from start to finish, it's hard to glean too much information from highlights. But here are five observations from the first look at the 2025-26 Blue Devils.
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What were the Duke basketball lineups in the scrimmage?
For starters, let's look at the lineups for the blue and white teams in Duke's highlight video. Duke's season-opening lineup will likely feature a mix of players from both sides, but here's what it looked like in the scrimmage.
In the footage, the white team featured Cayden Boozer, Darren Harris, Nik Khamenia, Sebastian Wilkins and Patrick Ngongba. The blue team featured Caleb Foster, Dame Sarr, Isaiah Evans, Cameron Boozer and Iffy Ufochukwu.
Maliq Brown, who continues to recover from shoulder surgery , was not featured in the posted highlight video. According to the footage shown, Blue had a 32-26 scoring advantage against White.
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Cameron Boozer looks comfortable as Duke basketball centerpiece
Cameron Boozer, Duke's top recruit and a projected top-3 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, scored 10 points in the highlights. Boozer, a 6-foot-9 forward with guard skills, knocked down 3-pointers from the wing and corner before showing off his post moves for two more buckets. Expected to be one of the favorites to win ACC Player of the Year as a freshman, Boozer had an isolation move that led to a fadeaway jumper and a quick hook shot. He also showed off his passing ability as an anchor in the middle of the paint. Boozer has the all-around game to be Duke's latest one-and-done star.
Darren Harris looks ready to take next step as 3-point shooter
Darren Harris scored 33 points, including five 3-pointers, in limited minutes as a reserve during his freshman season. In the highlight video, Harris was one of the top scorers as a beneficiary of drive-and-kick passes for 3-pointers. The 6-foot-6 wing had 11 points as the top scorer in the summer scrimmage highlights, including a trio of treys. Harris also had a nice cut that led to a layup in which he avoided a charge.
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Patrick Ngongba shows passing skills as pick-and-roll threat
Despite dealing with preseason injuries that hindered his early development as a freshman at Duke last season, Patrick Ngongba became a key player off the bench down the stretch as a center. Ngongba, who had at least seven points in six of the last eight games and multiple assists in three of those matchups, was a consistent pick-and-roll threat as a creator in the summer scrimmage. He makes a hook shot and layup early on in the footage before dribbling and using his 6-foot-11 frame to create scoring opportunities for his teammates. Ngongba had three assists in the highlight video.
Dame Sarr, Sebastian Wilkins, Nik Khamenia had eye-popping moments
Cameron Boozer is the prize of Duke's lastest recruiting class, but the Blue Devils' other freshmen look like they're ready to be immediate contributors, as well. International prospect Dame Sarr showed off his athleticism with a pair of eye-popping dunks in the open court and also drilled a 3-pointer from the wing. Nik Khamenia and Cayden Boozer were balanced and intentional in how they attacked the lane for kick-out passes to stretch and move defenders. Sebastian Wilkins drained a 3-pointer from the wing off an offensive rebound, which is something Scheyer always refers to as a "Duke shot." Wilkins also jumped into a passing lane for a deflection and steal that led to a fast-break dunk. Duke's latest freshmen class looks more than capable of handling its own in the ACC and the rest of college basketball.
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Rodd Baxley covers Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his ACC coverage on X/Twitter or Bluesky: @RoddBaxley. Got questions regarding those teams? Send them to rbaxley@fayobserver.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Darren Harris, Duke basketball observations from Blue Devils' scrimmage
