Duke opened its new exhibition season with a 102-62 win over Belmont on Thursday night, and the game belonged to Joaquim Boumtje-Boumtje. The 17-year-old freshman led Duke with 19 points, giving the Blue Devils an immediate answer in their first public look of the year.
Boumtje-Boumtje did it efficiently, shooting seven-of-eleven from the field and showing why the 7-foot-2 freshman is drawing attention before the regular season even starts. Jon Scheyer said the way Boumtje-Boumtje played at 17, in his first game, said a lot about who he is and what he is made of.
That is why a game that does not count on paper still carried real weight in the gym. Early exhibitions are where new pieces get sorted out, and Duke got another one from John Blackwell, the senior transfer guard who scored 17 points by working in the paint, hitting threes and creating his own shots. Blackwell called the energy amazing and said it was not even packed out, a reminder that the crowd noise will only grow when the stakes do too.
The setting also brought Belmont coach Evan Bradds back to Cameron Indoor Stadium after he left Duke six months ago for his first head coaching job. He had been a Duke assistant last season, and the return added a layer that a preseason score line alone could never show. Bradds called it a little weird and joked that everyone asked him what it felt like to be back after he had just left six months ago.
For Duke, the bigger takeaway is that the first exhibition did what it was supposed to do: it identified a freshman who can score right away and a transfer who can lift the offense in different ways. The next test comes on Oct. 20, when Duke plays Tennessee at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and the questions around Boumtje-Boumtje will only get louder if he keeps producing like this.
