When Chris Carrawell first heard the news that not only would Elton Brand leave Duke early for the NBA draft, but that William Avery and Corey Maggette would join him at the next level, the Blue Devil forward mourned their departure just like everyone else in the program.
Then he got a little selfish.
"If those guys would've come back, then my play would have been overlooked," Carrawell said. "I took the pressure off those guys - they didn't have to guard Steve Francis. They don't know how hard that was. When Will fouls out of a game, I bring the ball up. A lot of people overlook that."
But Brand is not back, instead becoming the first Blue Devil to defect as well as the first taken as the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.
Avery and Maggette, who also heard their names called in the top half of the first round, aren't around Durham either, meaning Carrawell will get his attention.
And that's fine by him.
"The real players come out this year," he said. "You'll see if Shane [Battier] and I were underrated, or overrated for that matter. We have an opportunity to really make a name for ourselves now. That's what you want as a player - to be in the limelight."
Battier, one of three returning scholarship players along with Carrawell and Nate James, echoes those sentiments.
"All of them [Brand, Avery and Maggette] are my friends, and I wish them the best," Battier said. "I thank them for giving me the opportunity to establish myself as the leader of this team."
That's not to say that Carrawell wasn't a little disappointed with the news that the trio of underclassmen would leave him behind.
But he understood.
A survivor of a St. Louis ghetto, Carrawell knows all about reality, a reality where money often speaks louder than 37 wins, louder than an appearance in the NCAA Tournament Final, louder than even a potential dynasty in Durham.
"You go to school to make a million dollars, right?" Carrawell said. "If somebody came up to you and said, 'I'm going to give you a million dollars to work at Morgan Stanley right now, as a sophomore,' you'd take it.
"After we lost [to Connecticut], the reality was, 'let's go make a million dollars,'" he added. "If you win, you win, now let's go get paid. That's what you play for - to make that money."
Brand's decision was a no-brainer, so expected that Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski went so far as to say Brand would be foolish not to make the jump. Avery and Maggette's defections were a little more unanticipated and a lot more scrutinized.
Maggette's decision was the biggest surprise.
Without bothering to so much as tell anyone in the basketball program, Maggette disappeared from the Duke campus only to turn up at home in Chicago.
A floating rumor declared that Maggette opted for the NBA Draft because of a newspaper article that cited credible sources swearing he would be the top pick. Maggette was taken at the No. 13 spot by the Seattle Sonics.
"With Corey, I had no clue," Carrawell said. "When he announced, I was like 'What are you doing?' Elton should have left - I'm sorry. Yeah, maybe Corey should have stayed. I would have liked to have seen him stay, but he's still making a million dollars a year. He'll probably end up being a great player."
Tack on the transfer of former ballyhooed prospect Chris Burgess to Utah, and the offseason took several sharp turns for the unexpected.
But don't expect Krzyzewski to give up the ship any time soon.
"A difficult offseason? We won 37 games last year," Krzyzewski said. "People should have those difficult offseasons. Would you please strike me with another 37-win season to see if I can handle it?
"You just have to keep everything in perspective," he said. "There are things that happen with success and failure that are just going to happen."
So what did Krzyzewski do? Without skipping a beat, he promptly stockpiled one of the more sterling recruiting classes in recent memory, a group that boasts four McDonald's All-Americans, the national player of the year in Jason Williams and a reputation as the top crop since Michigan's "Fab Five" arrived in 1993.
That's just Coach K's way.
"Once a thing is done, I go on to the next thing," Krzyzewski said. "I don't think about it at all; I haven't thought about it for months. I should be thinking about our group."
And it's a diverse group with Battier, Carrawell and Nate James returning to nurture the growth of six highly touted but unproven freshmen.
Call the three veterans what you will: babysitters, basketball players or a combination of the two, Carrawell is juiced.
"This year you'll see a lot of close games going down to the wire," he said. "It's going to be fun to watch. Every game at halftime we may be tied, unlike last year where we were up by thirty points at halftime.
"Those old guys left, but there's new guys here," he added. "People look at it like it's a bad thing, but is wasn't a bad thing."
As for predictions, Carrawell isn't naïve enough to think that a band of teenagers can duplicate last year's 37-win effort.
But he also knows that they'll be better than people think.
"A lot of people think we'll hit rock bottom," he said. "But what if we don't? Nobody ever thought about that. It's going to be interesting to see what happens."
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