The Truth Behind the Torian Graham Saga

You have to feel for Torian Graham. The kid just can’t get a break. He’s faced more tragedy in his life (off the court) than any 17 year old should ever face, and whenever it seems like Graham is taking a step forward in the right direction, things don’t seem to come together.

It’s hard to find stability when you jump from school to school as Graham has done over his high school career. He started in Durham Hillside, moved onto Word of God Academy and then onto Florida Arlington Country Day. His recruitment has been all over the map. He’s liked Kentucky, been pursued by Louisville, committed to NC State, decommitted from NC State and now yesterday’s happenings. If you follow our site, or NC State recruiting then you’d already know that Torian gave his commitment to NC State and only hours later renegged on that commitment, saying “something came up and I’m not committed anywhere.” This sent the media and the twitter world into a frenzy. Rumors were flying, people were criticizing the situation and Graham was firing back on Twitter, telling people they don’t understand and ‘who are you to talk about somebody?!”

So what really happend and who is to blame? Let us break it down for you.

On Wednesday night we at PackInsider.com received news that Graham had informed someone on the NC State coaching staff that he wanted to commit. He and the staff decided it was best for him to announce this after the NC State game against Northeastern, last night. We could have broken the information then, we had the story ready, but we were asked to wait until he made the announcement to break the news. We understood that and respected that. It was this kids big decision and it was only right that he got his day in the spotlight. We also waited because schools need a day to run all of these kids transcripts through and make sure they can qualify. A responsible school knows they need to have everything in order to qualify before they go and accept a commitment (that is soon to be signable). When you don’t give the school that time you risk embarrassment for everyone if it doesn’t work out. Well, the information got into the hands of the media big boys and as usual, it was prematurely broken. Once we saw that it had leaked, we went ahead and ran it as well. What no one knew was that there were, let’s say, complications with the admissions department  and Graham’s ability to commit. Out of concern for his privacy we won’t go into detail, but we will say that it was a matter of qualifications that forced NC State to not accept Graham’s verbal commitment.

This is sad because now you have media who have no idea about the situation starting rumors and painting Graham as the bad guy, or the kid who can’t make up his mind when the truth is, he made up his mind a long time ago. He wants to come to NC State. He still wants to be at NC State, it just cannot happen right now.

The good news is that NC State isn’t going to be out of the picture and they’ll hopefully at this point let Torian know exactly what he does and doesn’t have and what he needs to qualify. He doesn’t have to make a decision until Spring so there is a chance we see Torian recommit to NC State for a third time, however there’s always the chance that things don’t work out and he goes elsewhere.

We want to be as respectful as we can in this situation since so many outlets have been downright disrespectful and wrong to this kid. If people would just follow the rules and understand the stories before they ‘break’ them, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now. That being said, we know you’ll want to talk about this situation in the comment section and in our forums, but please note that any harsh criticism or disrespectful talk about Graham will not be tolerated. You will be banned.

This is an unfortunate situation for a good kid who just wants to play college basketball, just wants to commit to a school and be cheered like any other recruit. Give him a break.