DURHAM – Jon Scheyer’s friends in coaching told him to enjoy this game — or to at least try to enjoy it.

Duke’s new coach did his best before the seventh-ranked Blue Devils pulled away from visiting Jacksonville in a 71-44 win on Monday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“It’s not easy, right? You’re anxious, you have some nerves, you want to get out there and start to get going,” said Scheyer, the man who's taken over for Mike Krzyzewski. “I just took a moment before going out there.

“What an opportunity. What a moment. This is a place I’ve grown up in, playing, coaching. To be here as the head coach, I was not going to be anywhere other than this moment right now.”

The first points of Scheyer’s tenure came on a freshman-to-freshman alley-oop, though it didn’t involve any of the top-5 recruits in Duke’s star-studded class.

With Tyrese Proctor’s lob to Mark Mitchell, the Blue Devils were flying high in the opening minute of their opener.

“Mark starting it off that way was a big-time thing, it was well-executed and it was great to start off that way,” Scheyer said.

Mitchell led Duke with 18 points and was second on the team in plus-minus at plus-27. Jeremy Roach was plus-32 and scored all 16 of his points in the first half. Ryan Young scored 12 points and his only miss of the night was on a free throw (6-for-6 from the field), while Kyle Filipowski had 10 points and 12 rebounds — a nice way to celebrate his debut and 19th birthday.

Scheyer went into halftime of his first game with a 42-26 lead after sharing a comical exchange with his point guard.

Duke didn’t get a two-for-one but rebounded Proctor’s missed 3 with less than 20 seconds left. Instead of holding for the last shot, Roach launched a 3-pointer with about 14 seconds remaining — and drilled it.

“He said I shot too early on that last one,” Roach said with a smile. “But he was just happy I made it.”

The Blue Devils got a stop on Jacksonville’s last possession of the first half and Scheyer immediately went to Roach to share a hand slap, with Duke’s only captain sporting a Cheshire Cat grin.

“Jeremy and I have been through so much together, we’ve been in a lot of game situations,” Scheyer said. “I told him afterward, ‘Glad you made that. You better have made it.’”

Even the news regarding Duke’s two fallen freshmen is positive—or at least, it seems more positive than last update.

Duke will be without Dariq Whitehead for at least another week and a half, seemingly, with the freshman wing still sidelined by a fracture in his right foot suffered in late August. But he’s been cleared for contact, as has Dereck Lively II.

“I think Dereck has a great shot to play Friday,” Scheyer said, alluding to Duke’s next game against USC Upstate. “Dariq not this week, but the thing for Dariq now is he gets to start playing through contact.”

Given how solid Duke looked overall, there’s no rush for either freshman to rush back onto the court.

Duke’s lead was 10 after 10 minutes, at 23-13, before Jacksonville worked its way back into the game. A 6-0 run when Duke’s offense stagnated meant the Blue Devils’ lead was 25-22 before Roach hit the third of his four first-half 3s.

“We knew they’re a good team … we know they’ll be a tournament team this year,” Roach said. “We knew they were going to be in it, but we wanted to sustain that lead and it was kinda getting too close at that point. That settled us down.”

Sophomore guard Jaylen Blakes provided a spark in the first half, hitting two 3s in the first two minutes he was on the court. Perhaps more important, Blakes forced two turnovers in that time, helping the Blue Devils build a double-digit lead.

Filipowski’s double-double came after he looked like a deer in headlights for much of the first half. He hit a top-of-the-key 3-pointer on a secondary break with about one minute left in the first half that calmed his nerves.

“It did, for sure,” Filipowski said of that shot calming him down. “I’ve been working on those 3s all year and I’m going to keep shooting them. I mean, I’ve got confidence, my teammates have all the confidence in me shooting those 3s.”

Christian Reeves entered the game with 2:03 left, officially meaning he won’t redshirt this season. The freshman 7-footer told Devils Illustrated that he found out in shootaround earlier in the day that he wasn’t going to redshirt.

“I obviously want to play, so any chance I get to play, I’m going to take it,” Reeves said. “I think it does (speed up my process) in a way, but at the same time I’ve still gotta just make I’m sure I’m still getting better every day.”

TIP-INS: Scheyer only played seven players in the first half, with Jacob Grandison and Blakes coming off of the bench. … Six of those seven players had multiple assists, with Grandison leading the Blue Devils with five — he had more than four assists twice in 30 games at Illinois last season. … Scheyer wasn’t thrilled that Duke committed 12 turnovers, but the 19 assists on 27 field goals aspect was a positive first step for a coach who wants to see a high rate of ball movement. … Roach was 4-for-7 on 3-pointers; he finished last season shooting 3-for-19 on 3s, including 0-5 in the Final Four.