Countdown to Craziness: The Blue Devils Season Begins

Rob Kinnan (USA Today Sports)

The Duke Men's basketball squad kicked off their 2022-23 season with the 13th annual Countdown to Craziness on Friday night without a familiar face on the sideline.

The Scheyer era began with a 16-minute intra-squad scrimmage that saw Jeremy Roach go for 12 points on 3-3 shooting from deep for the Blue side. Sophomore guard Jaylen Blakes chipped in 10 points while freshman Christian Reeves was impressive on both sides of the floor adding 3 blocks to go along with his 11 points in 13 minutes for the Blue.

For the White side, Tyrese Proctor, a 5* freshman, led the way with 10 points and 2 assists. Proctor looks ready to contribute for the Blue Devils this season after deciding to reclassify from the class of 2023 to the class of 2022 in July.

The scrimmage started with Proctor finding fellow highly touted freshman Mark Mitchell for an explosive dunk in transition. The White jumped out to a quick 6-point lead before an 8-0 run from the Blue side. After trading buckets for a few minutes the Blue side found their groove and began to pull away with a 12-0 run. The White side was briefly able to cut the lead back to within 10 before back to back Jeremy Roach threes put the nail in the coffin and the Blue side ultimately pulled out a 15 point victory, 41-25.

Other Star freshmen Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively both sat the scrimmage out due to injury. Coach Scheyer addressed the injury situation after the game saying, "We are really being cautious with both of those guys. Dariq [Whitehead] is really progressing well...we don't want to get ahead of setting exactly when he's going to be back because there's still some steps he has to make..."

Scheyer went on to say that Lively is "more week to week" but that the Blue Devils are being "really cautious with him...I mean he's good, but we want to be really smart and both of them have bright futures ahead. We have a long season so we're not trying to rush them back..."