Raiders’ Graham leaves program

BY JEFF WALKER l A-J SPORTS EDITOR

Just one game into the Big 12 Conference season and Texas Tech is forced to make adjustments to its lineup.

That might not be bad news, however, if the Red Raiders can play consistently the way they played during Saturday’s 73-61 loss at No. 23 Baylor.

Freshman guard Tyree Graham told the Tech coaches Friday morning that he wanted to leave the program. Graham, from Durham, N.C., told the staff he had issues to take care of at home.

For most of the non-conference season, Graham would come in to spell starter John Roberson.
When healthy, Tech has tried to use a three-guard starting lineup of Roberson, Alan Voskuil and Nick Okorie.

That lineup changed against the Bears, however, with forward Michael Prince getting the start ahead of Okorie.

“We’ve played a lot of three-guard thus far, but we might play two guards and a forward and have those three guards in a rotation,” Tech assistant coach Stew Robinson said on Sunday. “With Prince coming back and we’ve also got Mike Singletary, we can have a three-guard rotation instead of all of them playing at the same time.”

After expressing his desire to leave, Graham tried to contact the Tech coaches later on Friday, but the team was traveling to Waco. Head coach Pat Knight said on Sunday that the staff will grant Graham his release to go elsewhere.

“I don’t know what happened. He told us he had some things going on at home,” Knight said.
Knight said he won’t try to change Graham’s mind and instead is spending the next couple days on the road recruiting as the Red Raiders don’t play again until Saturday’s Big 12 home opener against No. 7 Texas.

Graham’s best contribution might have been in a few years as he averaged just 3.9 points in 13 non-conference games. The freshman averaged 14 minutes per game, but didn’t travel to Stanford due to illness and didn’t play against TCU or Baylor.

Without the reserve guard, the Red Raiders still were able to be competitive playing against their second ranked opponent of the season (then-No. 4 Pittsburgh).

Tech held the lead at the 12:40 mark of the second half and was tied with 11:40 to play before Baylor guard LaceDarius Dunn scored 11 consecutive points to give the Bears control for good.

Prince, getting his first start of the season, played an active role early as the Red Raiders scored the first seven points. He finished with three points, six rebounds and two steals in 20 minutes before fouling out with 1:42 to play.

“I’m playing three sophomores (Roberson, D’walyn Roberts and Singletary) and a freshman (Robert Lewandowski) a lot so they’re just going to keep getting better,” Knight said following the loss.

“We just made some bad decisions on passes and (had) some dropped balls and that’s more mental to me than anything else.”

Turnovers prevented Tech from getting a bigger lead in the first half and from getting the margin of deficit closer in the second half.

The Red Raiders came in averaging 14.4 turnovers per game, but they surpassed that (15) in the first half. Tech finished with a season-worst 23 turnovers.

Tech’s three sophomores — Roberson, Singletary and Roberts — each committed four against the Bears. Roberson came into the Big 12 opener with a team-high 52 turnovers, nearly twice as many as any other teammate.

Robinson said the Red Raiders might try to free up Roberson to get better chances to score in the future.

“We don’t have to have John bringing up the ball all the time,” Robinson said. “These are college ballplayers, so they all should be able to handle the ball. We’ve been trying to get some of the other guys to bring the ball up and we’ll keep working on that.”

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