We were talking about this here at the site last night and we had pretty much confirmed that junior guard Ty Graves had re-enrolled at Page High School and today we found confirmation on his return in print at the News and Record web site, www.news-record.com with Joe Sirera reporting…
CLICK HERE to read all…
Joe Sirera, from the N&R has spoken with Ty Graves’ father and he confirmed that Ty was back at Page, but he would not be playing basketball for the Pirates this season and the word is, coach’s decision…
We looked up Ty’s numbers at Montverde Academy, down in Florida, by way of MaxPreps.com and MaxPreps had Ty averaging right at 3.8 points per game over 16 games and those were the numbers we were able to attain last night….
Ty Graves has committed to play college basketball at Boston College and Ty is rated one of the top junior prospects in the nation at the guard position and he can play two-guard or point guard and I think point is the preference….
Ty left Page for Montverde, rated among the top five teams in the nation by MaxPreps.com and by USA Today and when Ty left, it looked like a good move for him, as he was hitting/joining a highly ranked high school program….
It also appeared that this would hurt the Page Pirates, who were already dealt a blow when senior shooting guard Anthony Eaves moved to Louisville, Kentucky to play for well-known Ballard High School, before the 2014/2015 school year even started/began…
Then on top of all of that, Page lost their big post man Xavier Hill-Mais for the first semester and that left Page in a bit of a pickle, as the Pirates prepared to play the first half of the season without Graves, Eaves and Hill-Mais…
Hill-Mais is out, Graves is gone(transfer to Montverde) and Eaves is gone(transfer to Ballard)….
Page hung in and played on with a new look, moving Diondre Overton to the point guard spot, making Tyren Melton the two-guard, running Jalen Seegars and Will Jones along the wings and having sophomore David Funderburg man most of the post….
Page was (4-4) going into the 2014 Haeco Tournament on December 26 and on that day, the Pirates saw Xavier Hill-Mais return to the lineup and Page goes (2-1) in the Haeco, with their only loss being to eventual tournament champion Greensboro Day School in the semifinals and since that day, December 26, when Xavier Hill-Mais got back in the lineup for Page and hit the Pirates’ low post spot, Page has gone (14-1) and with the (4-4) start and then the (14-1) with Hill-Mais back in there, Page now sits at (18-5) and the Pirates have a #5 seed for the NCHSAA Boys 4-A Tournament, which will be really begin, sometime later on this decade/week….
Page has been nearly unstoppable since Hill-Mais return and the team seems to have found a very good chemistry with Overton still at point, Melton at the two, Seegars and Jones running the wings and the “X-Man” in the post….
Not saying that Ty Graves would not be welcome back to this team, but just saying this team has found an identity and you may not want to mess with that, now that you have been on roll…I said it before here on the site, the Pirates were winning come December 26 when Hill-Mais got back with the team, but it even took them time to realize he was out there with them again and for a while they had to get used to seeing him and knowing he was there and they had to find ways to make sure they got him involved in the offense…When he was out for the first few weeks, the Pirates had gotten used to doing and dealing with things without Hill-Mais and it just took time to get the flow rolling the right way again and it finally did, to tune of (14-1) record, a perfect (10-0) Metro 4-A Conference record and the regular season/total season Title, since there was NO tournament this year…
Page was the Champion and they are the Metro’s #1 seed in the NCHSAA Tournament…Page has something special working right now, once they get back on the court again and the coaches have decided things will be best left alone and that they need to keep things the same way, with the same working order/parts….
Ty Graves will not re-join the team in 2015 as the Pirates make their playoff run…Last season, in 2014, Page made it to the NCHSAA West Regional Finals, where they saw their season end on a last-second shot by Lake Norman….Page was down by 20-25 points early in that game, but they had one of the best second-half comebacks that we have ever seen…..
How far will Page go this season? That remains to be seen, but they will go with what got them to where they are today(2/25/15) and we have to respect the coaches for that….
The decision has been made and it is time to stick with that and it is time for all of the current 2014/2015 Pirates to go with all hands on deck…All hands on the ball, or at least the hands of the starting five, when the game begins…This is a team effort and they will go with the team that has fought their way back to (14-1) since December 26 and the focus will be on the current Page roster…
Ty Graves will not be a part of this year’s Page team and he chose not to be a part of the team prior to the season…That was his choice and his family’s choice and we respect that choice and as we have said in the past, Ty Graves is an excellent basketball player and an even finer young man and his dad Kevin Graves is an excellent basketball teacher/instructor….They just made a choice not to be part of the Page Pirate basketball program for this season and that is what the Page coaches are holding them to…
Respecting that decision and sticking with that decision…..
Page coach Matt Harder has a job to do and that is to lead his young men and the feeling we are seeing/getting is that he is looking for young men that will be with him from November 1st(the start of the season) until March 14(the last day of the season)……
We had some other thoughts and comments about this topic and post last night and you can feel free to go back and read those too….
(We may add them in here for you later on)….
*****Comments open on this one for a while this evening and I’m sure we will have to shut them down, once the weather gets rough or the language gets a little too over the top…..Stay with us and for more info on this or other posts, contact us at andy@greensborosports.com…..*****
There will always be several questions left unanswered, but we will stay close to the fire…..