DURHAM - Defense wasn’t supposed to be a strength of this No. 1-ranked Duke basketball team.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski said during the preseason that the Blue Devils would spend a lot of practice time focusing on defensive skills and habits.
In Duke’s first two games, though, defense has carried a Blue Devils team that has stumbled at times on offense. Duke held Miami (Ohio) to 33.3 percent from the field Tuesday night in a 79-45 win at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
The question was rhetorical. The answer, a given.
Though acknowledging that he hadn't known Drew Everson nearly as well as so many of those attending a memorial service Wednesday, Duke President Richard Brodhead told his story of his first interaction with the popular student.
Though just a freshman, Everson stood out at the mixer for new students Brodhead hosted several years ago. He was the extrovert, the one with a little more self-confidence, a little more pizazz to his personality. The one you noticed.
"I, too, knew him," Brodhead said, speaking after several of Everson's friends told stories about their fallen buddy. "Because is there anyone at Duke who didn't know him?"
Everson died Sunday after what the university has deemed an accidental fall. On Wednesday, mourners packed Duke Chapel to laugh and cry and remember a student they insisted was not your ordinary 21-year-old.
It was a ceremony marked by light moments and wrenching ones, as friend after friend tried to explain Everson's particular brand of interpersonal magic.
They spoke of his many loves - Duke basketball, deep debate and a good scotch whiskey.
They spoke of his dedication and loyalty to his friends, and his uncanny knack for always being the best shoulder to cry on.
"Drew was the person to call about absolutely anything," said Lauren Haigler, a friend Everson comforted as she struggled with her parents' divorce. "He was the perfect friend."
As his friends describe him, Everson was one of those devour-and-cherish-every-moment sorts - like the time he and friends jumped into a fountain in downtown Indianapolis at 4 a.m. earlier this year after having watched Duke win the national basketball title in that city.
Another friend, Matt Byrne, read aloud a letter to Everson.
"You see beyond the superficial," he said. "You see me for who I am."
There were more than 1,000 mourners at Duke Chapel Wednesday, and for the most part, they seemed to hold it together.
Until the end.
That's when Edie Wellman, another Duke student, closed the memorial with a poignant, utterly brave solo. Saluting her friend by wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt and strumming a guitar, Wellman sang the Green Day song "The Time of Your Life," and it wasn't easy.
Her lilting voice trembled as she worked her way through the song. Stanza after stanza, she inhaled deeply and forged on, her visceral grief on public display.
Across Duke Chapel, people inhaled with her. You could feel it.
She could barely speak the last lines:
"It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you have the time of your life."
With that, she leaned into the microphone, and whispered: "I love you, Drew."
Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski made more than $4.1 million last year.
And that was before he won his fourth national title.
According to Andy Curliss over on our investigations blog, Coach K's pay has tripled over the last four seasons. He now appears to be the highest-paid coach in the country, according to several surveys and studies.
Duke is a private institution and thus doesn't have to make its salaries public, as UNC campuses do. But it's a non-profit, which means it must report some information to the IRS.
Quincy Miller, one of the top juniors in the country, may be transferring.
Sitting here at Cameron Indoor Stadium with several thousand Duke fans waiting for the team to get here from the airport.
The "Welcome Home" party was supposed to start at 1, but the team flight was delayed out of Indianapolis.
To kill time, fans are watching the second half of last night's game, with highlights interrupted on occasion by a live TV news helicopter footage of the team buses, which are en route from RDU to Duke's campus.
Plenty of excitement here on campus. Lots of fans sporting snazzy new National Championship 2010 gear. The bookstore's doing a healthy business today.
For full coverage, check newsobserver.com later today and tomorrow.
Quincy Miller now has more than 100 basketball scholarship offers.
The highly touted point guard prospect from Raleigh's Word of God has scheduled a Wednesday press conference to discuss his plans to attend Kentucky.
In a conversation this morning with The N&O's Tim
Stevens, Wall says his relationship with Wildcats coach John Calipari made it "an easy decision."
Word of God point guard plans a surprise visit.
John Wall plans to go to college.
Others may say he is ready for the NBA, but he is talking about playing college basketball. He plans to have his list of schools down to three or four by next Monday.
"The amount of money you hear [for high picks in the NBA draft] is pretty impressive," Wall said Tuesday. "But I really think I need one, two, three years of college to prepare me to play in the NBA"
Ravenscroft's Ryan Kelly was named as the N.C. Gatorade award. The Duke recruit averaged 25.2 points and 10.2 rebounds. He also has an overall grade point average of 4.1.
