Midway through the second half of Saturday's Blue-White scrimmage, Nolan Smith lofted a pass to fellow freshman Kyle Singler for an alley-oop. As Singler caught the ball and approached the net, though, Gerald Henderson came out of nowhere, leaping well above the rim to knock the ball away.
The block sent the crowd into a frenzy, one of several highlight-reel plays from the Blue Devils during the annual intrasquad exhibition, which the Blue team won 69-64 at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Both squads exhibited a more up-tempo style than a season ago, in which Duke routinely experienced scoring droughts in the halfcourt offense. The 69 points scored in just 30 minutes of action by the victorious Blue team-composed primarily of expected starters-was more than what the Blue Devils tallied in 13 games last season.
"We're a much better basketball team than we were last year-a lot older, deeper, and more athletic," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We're going to take shots and I thought we took a lot of really good shots."
At the same time, Duke still struggled in the post, with Brian Zoubek picking up six fouls for the contest-one more than allowed in a regular season game. Lance Thomas also failed to grab a defensive rebound.
Singler, however, led all players with 23 points, displaying an array of moves both on the block and from the wing. The freshman also got to the foul line seven times, knocking down five of his free throws. The highlight of Singler's first action in Cameron was an alley-oop from Jon Scheyer, which he finished one-handed with authority.
"The pass made the play," Singler said. "It was just a good pass by Jon, and I happened to be in a good spot at a good time."
Singler's classmate Taylor King was the star of the first half, nailing five three-pointers and helping the Blue team amass an early 27-9 lead. In one stretch that lasted less than a minute early in the period, King nailed a pull-up three from the elbow to make it 7-2. Two plays later, the forward stole the ball, pulled up from even further beyond the arc and swished the long-range shot to make it 12-2.
The White squad called timeout as King howled and bumped chests with Zoubek and Greg Paulus.
"Coach told me to take good shots and when I get on a roll and make two or three in a row, I feel like I can expand my range," King said. "We can definitely hurt teams pretty bad with three-point shooting."
Henderson picked up the slack for King in the second half, scoring 14 of his 21 points after the intermission. For the game, the sophomore was 9-of-15 from the floor and sank all three of his attempts from beyond-the-arc.
Henderson also stood out on defense, recording two steals and two blocks, including the incredible swat of Singler's dunk attempt.
Three of last year's starters-senior captain DeMarcus Nelson, and guards Paulus and Scheyer-were relatively quiet on the offensive end.
Nelson scored 10 points, while Paulus took only four shots for the Blue team. The junior did hit a big three-pointer with 1:30 left to push the lead back to five.
Scheyer, meanwhile, was just 2-of-8 from the field, but Krzyzewski attributed that to Nelson's defense.
The coaches and players are looking forward to putting points on the scoreboard in a hurry with an offense that suits the team's natural athleticism.
"We have a different offense and it will create those types of things," Krzyzewski said. "There is a lot of stuff to learn about the team-but all good stuff."
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