4 buckets and 1 brick from Duke basketball's 84-50 season-opening win over Army

Duke opened the season on Monday night at Cameron Indoor with an 84-50 win over Army.

The 34-point blowout masks that it was an up-and-down performance for the Blue Devils after a red-hot first four minutes. Duke opened the game on a 12-0 run and made its first six shots, but the offense was clunky and disorganized from there, struggling to find holes in the Army zone defense and going long stretches without baskets.

Jon Scheyer has plenty of teaching points to focus on after the opener, which is a good thing. Buy games are meant to expose early weaknesses without legitimate concern of getting upset. That's exactly what the Blue Devils got in game one.

Let's look at the best - and worst - performances from Duke's 34-point season-opening win:

Buckets

Dame Sarr

It's hard to do much better than Dame Sarr against Army. He scored a team-leading 16 points on 5-of-5 shooting from the floor and 6-of-6 from the foul line. He attacked Army's closeouts on kickouts to the corner and got to the rim and finished.

The sophomore wing has expanded his game beyond being just a catch-and-shoot player, and he should be poised for a significant year two leap.

Sarr was also the head of the snake for the Blue Devils' defensive performance, helping hold Army to just 50 points and 35% shooting from the floor.

Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje

The highly anticipated regular season debut for Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje lived up to the hype. He scored 15 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, and blocked 3 shots in Duke's win. He was 3-of-4 from inside the arc, just 1-of-4 from three, and knocked down all six of his free throws.

There were some teachable moments, as expected for the 17-year-old freshman. Scheyer wasn't happy with how slowly he got back on defense in the second half after an impressive windmill dunk in transition. You can bet he'll hear about that when they watch the film.

Deron Rippey Jr.

Whew, buddy, Deron Rippey Jr. is an unbelievable athlete. That put-back one-handed jam off Patrick Ngongba's missed jumper in the first half was the first of many moments in Cameron Indoor this season where Rippey will bring the crowd to its feet:

That wasn't the only eye-popping play made by the freshman guard. He made an unreal hustle play in transition to track down a loose ball before throwing a behind-the-back pass to Dame Sarr for an and-one:

Aiding Rippey even further is that neither Cayden Boozer nor Caleb Foster played particularly well. Scheyer will continue to lean on his veteran guards early in the season, but as Rippey develops and gets more comfortable, it's going to be tougher and tougher to keep him off the court.

Cameron Williams

Freshman Cameron Williams got some extended run in the opener, and he looked pretty good. He has been behind because of a preseason illness that caused him to lose some weight, and while he's further down the rotation right now than he hoped, it's clear that he has a whole lot of talent.

In 11 minutes against Army, Williams put up 4 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. He caught a half-court alley-oop for a slam where it looked like his head was at the top of the backboard, too.

Duke fans will have to continue to exercise patience with the former 5-star prospect, but that patience will eventually be rewarded.

Bricks:

John Blackwell

It was not the Duke debut that Wisconsin transfer guard John Blackwell envisioned for himself. He was held scoreless for the first 32 minutes of the game before finally knocking down a three with just eight minutes to play.

That proved to be his only bucket as he finished with 3 points on 1-of-6 shooting with four turnovers. Nobody embodied what Scheyer said in the postgame about putting too much pressure on themselves more than Blackwell, who looked like he was pressing every time he touched the ball. That led to uncharacteristic turnovers and rushed jumpers.

Better days are ahead for Blackwell, who went right back to work after the final whistle:

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