DURHAM – Of the 10 players who played the majority of the scrimmage at Countdown to Craziness on Friday night, eight of them have never played in a Duke jersey before.

But four of them had seen CTC.

Freshmen Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, Darren Harris and Isaiah Evans were all in attendance for last year’s CTC as recruits — Flagg was the only one of them hadn’t committed yet.

So, they had some notion of how the preseason event would unfold.

Then again, it’s a big difference between watching from the stands and for a few minutes, with the Cameron Crazies and actually playing in the scrimmage.

“It’s not something I can describe or you can see from the stands,” Flagg said. “It’s a completely different feeling when you get in here and you experience it for yourself and you’re the one on the court.

“I was here last year for the Countdown and it’s just a completely different feeling of being in the middle of it and being out in the crowd.”

That is, more or less, why the event has the staying power it does. Coach Jon Scheyer made it clear the night is about building a relationship with the home crowd.

“I think for anybody, your first time in Cameron

“I think for anybody, your first time in Cameron, it’s — I’m not evaluating on what happened tonight, with any of these guys,” Scheyer said on Friday night. “I just told them, I wanted all of them to feel it.”

Harris felt it — and then it was over.

The freshman wing soaked in the atmosphere and wasn’t shy about getting up shots early, scoring the first points of the night on a 3-pointer. But he felt like the two 10-minute scrimmage sessions went by quickly.

“It was surreal. It was a dream of mine since I was a little kid, so being able to get out there and play with my brothers, in front of that crowd, I can’t even explain it,” Harris said. “I was thinking about it earlier, when you’re a player, it feels so short.

“It kind of flew by with all of the preparation we did and the waiting around and stuff. It flew by. As a spectator, it kind of felt a little longer.”

Patrick Ngongba II was also at CTC last year but he didn’t play on Friday night as he recovers from a lingering foot injury. Walking into the arena and throughout the night, he didn’t appear to have much difficulty moving around and wasn’t wearing a walking boot or anything protective.

Here some other takeaways from the night:

While Duke was going through warmups and there were only a few minutes before the Blue-White game, the three referees — none of them familiar faces in the ACC — called Tyrese Proctor to midcourt.

That’s where the rack of balls was stationed. Under normal pre-game circumstances, this might be a captains’ meeting; not so much when it’s a scrimmage.

The refs were asking Proctor, a junior but the only scholarship player who’s been at Duke for multiple seasons, which ball he wanted to use.

If it was a sign of respect, he didn’t pick up on it.

“He asked me what ball. Just picked the game ball,” Proctor said matter of factly. “He just said, ‘Tyrese, which ball do you want?’ Bounced one of them and didn’t like it, picked the other one up.”

Don’t expect Khaman Maluach to take many 3-pointers this season.

But also, don’t expect him to pass up every open look he gets from out there.

Maluach banked in a 3-pointer a couple of minutes into the second 10-minute segment of CTC. After floating for the first 10 minutes — four rebounds, no shot attempts — he had seven points, four rebounds and two blocks after changing teams at halftime.

“For Khaman, he’s not going to be judged by his 3-point field goal percentage or numbers scoring,” Scheyer said. “His impact, as you can tell, is the way he can protect the rim and run the floor, the energy that he plays with.

“He’s got a great skillset, he’s just expanding it in terms of understanding when to use it in a game. … When he’s open, I want all of our guys to shoot those.”

One man in the spotlight of Cameron Indoor Stadium, an instrument his only company, showcasing his musical talent in a way no one could expect.

Stanley Borden, of course.

Duke’s walk-on 7-footer stole the show during individual player introductions by playing “Clarity” by Zedd (ft. Foxes) on an electric keyboard. For about 30 seconds, it was Borden playing a song he’d learned for about a week.

It was the senior’s third CTC intro and all of them have been musically inspired — though, this one hit the note he wanted after last year’s missed the mark.

“The way I’ll put it is that: When I did the saxophone, that was probably the peak,” Borden said of his first intro, two years ago. “Moving to the acapella group … it was a good idea, execution was not exactly what I desired. Acoustics of Cameron, rhythm, timing, you’re not having a background track or an actual group. They did a great job, it just ended up that way.

“This year, piano is actually my better instrument, sax is a secondary one. It’s always a way to show how cool you are, right? Be it the song you choose or the way you play. Chose to play Clarity, learned it on the piano over the past week, and knowing that it’s such a big song for college students and just people who enjoy music in general, it’s a very popular song.”

The instrument was obviously different this time around and so was the outfit — or, lack thereof this year, to be specific.

Borden’s 2022 intro was a whole ensemble, made complete by a tan trench coat that helped him hide the saxophone until he was on the stage at halfcourt.

The story of how he was cleared to wear the trench coat is as good as the performance — he had to beat then-assistant coach Amile Jefferson in a game of 1-on-1.

As he put it: “They still let me wear it.”

(Jefferson was barely a year removed from being on a pro roster.)

There was no fancy outfit this year; just Borden playing piano, the crowd getting into it, one of the loudest cheers of the night for a player who’s been on the court for a game twice in three seasons.

His previous performance helped clear the way for this year’s approval.

“This year, there was no need for any kind of other apparel,” Borden said. “The line of approval was way easier. Just played it, they said it sounds great, and then got it done in terms of how we wanted to organize it with the music coming in at some point and that was it.

“It was awesome.”

See for yourself: