Freshman point guard the key for SJSU
Rest of his game offsets hair-raising turnovers
San Jose State's Justin Graham had some unexpected free time after fracturing his right elbow at midseason. So, finally listening to the persistent pleas of his parents, he made sure to get a haircut.
His hair had gotten so long that his father wondered how he could even see on the basketball court. And sometimes it did seem as if Graham's eyes were peering through vertical blinds.
He didn't go for a buzz cut, though. Graham, SJSU's high-wire act of a freshman point guard, still has a mop of hair flying everywhere as he darts around defenders.
"It definitely was just a trim," said Graham, who in street clothes looks like he could be in an alternative rock band. "It would be weird really short. But it doesn't bother me when I play, so it's not really that big of an issue."
And Coach George Nessman sure isn't making it one, either - not with Graham sharing the team lead in scoring and becoming SJSU's most exciting player in years.
Graham, a free spirit with the Pete Maravich locks and a love of cruising the campus on his skateboard, is a big reason the long-downtrodden SJSU program (12-18, 4-12 Western Athletic Conference) has surpassed its victory total for the past two seasons combined.
But Graham, who missed five games because of the elbow injury, also epitomizes how the Spartans remain a work-in-progress heading into tonight's WAC tournament game against Louisiana Tech in Las Cruces, N.M.
SJSU coaches never know what they're
going to get out of the flashy Graham each time down the court. His averages of 11.3 points, 3.0 assists and 1.7 steals are counterbalanced by an eye-popping 4.5 turnovers per game.
"It's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at times with him," Nessman said. "But that's OK. That's who he is. If we put too much of a harness on him, he becomes a lesser player."
Still, Nessman preaches to Graham about what he describes as "the genius of the word 'and.' "
Let him explain.
"He needs to be electric and disciplined," Nessman said. "He's still learning when to be explosive and when not to be like that. But it's not totally unexpected when you have a first-year Division I player at the point."
This could have been Graham's second year, and that story explains why he's at SJSU.
Graham comes from a basketball family. His dad played small-college ball and his step-grandfather, Neal Walk, is the answer to this trivia question: Who was drafted by the Phoenix Suns in 1969 after they lost a coin flip for the rights to Lew Alcindor?
Graham was a star at Ripon High outside Modesto. But unlike most kids who want to play right away in college, Graham preferred to sit a year.
Slender at 6-foot-4, he wouldn't turn 18 until his first semester of college and didn't think he was physically ready for the college game. He also had an academic plan.
His father, Steve Graham, is associate director of the Cal State-Stanislaus graduate school. He encouraged his son to start taking college classes early, and Graham had totaled 24 1/2 credits before even setting foot on a campus.
"So if I stay in college five years, I can get my master's degree," Graham said. "My dad and I decided to tell every school recruiting me that I was going to redshirt."
Most coaches hedged; Nessman didn't.
"He was straight up with us and didn't play the game that a lot of coaches did," Steve Graham said.
But it wasn't easy for Nessman, whose teams won just 11 games his first two seasons. It's hard for a coach to think about tomorrow in the win-now world of college sports - especially when the Spartans went 5-25 a year ago, showing no improvement from his debut season.
"I'd watch Justin whip our guys at practice," Nessman said. "I just had to look away when he was playing great and start thinking about something else."
Graham was worth the wait.
His jumper with one second remaining gave the Spartans a 64-62 victory over Appalachian State early in the season. He also scored 29 points in a January loss to Hawaii.
"He's a heady player with a great feel for the court," Boise State Coach Greg Graham said after the SJSU guard averaged 19 points in two games against the Broncos. "I'm not looking forward to seeing him for the next three years."
That's because the ball always seems to be in Graham's hands. Well, except when he loses it.
Reducing turnovers is Graham's No. 1 challenge. He had seven in a February loss to Pacific and six Saturday in an 87-83 loss at Louisiana Tech.
"It definitely needs to get a lot of better," Graham said. "I will do little crazy things out there that can hurt the team. But I think in the long run, it balances out."
On the court, he likes to chat - not trash talk - with opponents. ("He is a communications major," Steve Graham said. "He's a talker.") The guard also is good-natured about the ribbing he takes about his surfer-dude look.
In a January game against Nevada, a fan taunted Graham by yelling, "Where's your skateboard?" Graham hadn't heard him and was disappointed afterward that he didn't get to respond.
"I would have told him that my skateboard is in my room," he said of his preferred mode of travel between classes. "I don't do tricks on it or anything. I just ride a long board because it's so much quicker to get around."
As for his hair, Graham is amused about the attention. He kept it short until his sophomore year in high school. But once he started growing it out, he just never stopped. Shaking his head to keep it out of his eyes has become second nature, Graham said.
"I'm OK with guys expressing themselves as individuals as long as it's reasonable," Nessman added. "I think with Justin we're still within reason."
Now, about getting those turnovers trimmed to a reasonable level . . .
