Graves able to join Jayhawks

By Gary Bedore     Nov 9, 2002

He’s no Jim Ryun, Wes Santee or Glenn Cunningham, but Jeff Graves is a good enough distance runner to join Kansas University’s men’s basketball team.

Graves, a 6-foot-9, 275-pound junior forward from Lee’s Summit, Mo., on Wednesday put on his track shoes and completed 61¼2 laps of the Memorial Stadium track in 12 minutes :quot; a standard that must be reached before a prospective Jayhawk becomes an official KU basketball player.

“We have a new member of our basketball team. Jeff Graves passed the running test and I will start treating him nicer, being nicer to him,” KU coach Roy Williams said Friday at his first weekly press conference of the 2002-03 season. “He made it Wednesday afternoon and I was really happy for him because I have been really tough on him.”

Williams has been tough on Graves both in practice and in the media this semester :quot; ever since the former Iowa Western Community College standout reported at 293 pounds and failed several times to pass the running test that the other Jayhawks aced in August.

“I’ve been pretty doggone tough on him in every scenario, but now he’s partially gotten over on the good side and gotten partially out of the doghouse. Now we’ll see how he can play,” Williams said.

KU’s coach said Graves still has some weight to lose, but making the running test is a good first step.

“He’s still way overweight. The number that everybody keeps saying (275 pounds) is still low,” said Williams, not revealing Graves’ current weight. “He is getting better. He’s working harder. He’s trying more.”

Williams sensed some urgency for Graves to make his 61¼2 laps after the coach told Graves the only reason he played in last Monday’s exhibition game is he considers exhibitions “glorified practices.”

“He’s a bright youngster because he figured out when I said ‘glorified practice’ he knew that meant he wasn’t going to play against Holy Cross, and the next game, and the next game, and the next game. If we’d have gone through 35 games or whatever and if he’d never passed the running test he never would have stepped out on the court,” Williams said. “He knew he had to get it done so he might as well make up his mind he was going to.”

So Graves passed the test with little breathing room Wednesday.

“When he came in Wednesday he had a smile on his face. We were all congratulating him, happy for him,” sophomore forward Wayne Simien said.

“Now he has something to get some praise about. He’s been getting beat up a lot by the coaches and by the press a little bit. In the locker room we’ve been trying to encourage him, motivate him as much as possible, because no matter how tough you are :quot; you can say those things don’t bother you :quot; but you can tell it was kind of getting to him.”

Williams was glad to see a smile on Graves’ face.

“He was about as happy as I’ve ever seen him immediately after that,” Williams said. “I have not had him on the blue (first) team a single day at practice, even as a sub. Now there’s a chance he could get some time as a blue team member at practice now.”

Williams explained why he’s been so miffed at Graves.

“He made some huge mistakes in the offseason. He allowed himself to really get out of shape,” Williams said. “It was very unfortunate he was involved in the (car) accident. Now he was going through a period he couldn’t condition because of the accident he was involved in.

“I was bad to him because I was so mad at him for the previous stuff. My only question (after the accident) was, ‘Are you OK?’ And after I found out he was OK, then I went back to being mad at him again.”

Williams said he had no set weight for Graves to reach.

“He’s got to be able to go up and down the court a number of times without hurting us. But he’s still got several pounds to go to be able to do that consistently and to be able to play for long periods of time and he knows that,” the coach said.

“Even though his weight has not gone down as much as I would have liked to, I think his percentage of body fat :quot; which we are checking now :quot; I think it will show it has gone down.”

Graves scored eight points with six rebounds in 10 minutes Monday against EA Sports. He could play more in Tuesday’s 7 p.m. battle against Washburn.

“He will be considered just like everybody else,” Williams said. “I didn’t play him as much the other night. I didn’t think he deserved to go as much as the other guys. He was the last of the scholarship players to go in the game.”

Everybody seems to think he’ll eventually be a big factor for KU, which is thin off the bench on the inside.

“He’s huge. He’s just huge,” Simien said. “He’s tough to get around in practice. He moves pretty well for his size. A lot of people expect him to be kind of out of shape, but he’s got good feet. I think he can definitely help us.”

Graves is off limits to the press until his first regular season game.

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