Men's Basketball: Graves shows guts in performance off the bench
By: ANDREW SOUKUP
Associate Sports Editor
The way David Graves played against Rutgers it was impossible to tell he woke up Wednesday morning and couldn't move.
He scored 18 points on 6-of-11 shooting. Not too shabby for a guy collapsed with excruciating pain in his lower back that left him wondering how in the world he'd be able to move, let alone play 28 minutes of basketball.
"I was in the worst pain of my life," he said after hobbling to his seat in the interview room after the game. "I felt like I had no hope."
Tuesday afternoon, Graves threw a pass to a streaking Matt Carroll, very similar to a pair he threw down the court against Rutgers. It's unclear whether or not Graves crumpled to the floor before the pass reached Carroll. All that mattered was that the confident, almost cocky, shooter couldn't control the spasms in his back.
Graves left practice right away. His teammates didn't know if he'd be able to play. Heck, Graves didn't even know if he'd be able to play.
He spent most of Tuesday night in the infirmary while Dr. Jim Moriarity tried everything he knew to fix his back.
And Doc succeeded — for the night.
The next morning, Graves could barely get out of bed. It took him 25 minutes just to go to the bathroom. Playing was the least of his worries. He was too busy working on walking.
"I was very concerned," Mike Brey said. "At 3 p.m., I didn't think he would play."
But something inside Graves took over. Inner will, painkillers — it's tough to say what exactly it was that got the senior tri-captain ready for a big game against a big opponent.
It could have been the nothing-can-keep-me-down attitude that Graves shrouded himself in during a miserable five-game shooting slump where the probability of Mike Tyson taking anger-management sessions was greater than Graves' chances of making a 3-pointer.
Or it could have been the silent strength that Graves grabbed onto when he spent the night after getting benched against Georgetown tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
Then again, Graves' aching back might have caused him to latch onto the team-first attitude that he adopted when he was unwillingly relegated to a sixth-man role for the first time in his career. Although Graves would rather be starting, he's been on fire when he comes off the bench.
Maybe he looked at the implications a loss would have on Notre Dame's postseason hopes and willed the pain to go away, kind of like he's done all season.
So an hour or so before the game, while most of the campus was wondering about the future of a high school football standout, Graves was worried about the future of his college career. His back had never hurt so badly in his life.
But he ran up and down the court in pre-game warm-ups, and things began to loosen up. He took a few shots, and things got better. Maybe, I'll be able to play, he thought.
After the starting lineups were announced, Graves walked behind the Notre Dame bench. In fact, whenever he wasn't in the game, he was standing behind the bench stretching his back.
"I was afraid if I sat down, my back would tighten up," he said.
A few weeks ago, Graves was about as low as a player could be. His shots weren't falling, he was losing confidence, and he played shoddy defense.
Then, last night, Graves turned in one of the gutsiest performances of the season.
Every time Graves fired a shot, he felt a twinge in his back. Whenever one of 3-point shots found the bottom of the net, he raised his arms and skipped down the court even though it felt like hell to celebrate. And don't even ask him how bad it hurt when he was fouled hard on a breakaway lay-up.
And yet no matter how bad the pain got, he seemed happy.
Graves certainly has gone through more than his share of struggles this season. But he never seems to give up. And when his shot is on, like it was Wednesday night, he forgets that he didn't start and that he can't sit down.
"When the jumpers are falling, it kills a lot of pain," Matt Carroll told his friend after the game. "Best medicine there is."
After the game, Graves joked about how he'd be popping pills and becoming best friends with his pillow in order to be ready for Notre Dame's rematch against Georgetown. And when he hobbled down out of the interview room, it was easy to assume that he sat on the bench the entire game wearing a suit.
"He was hurting," Brey said. "He was one tough sucker tonight."
It's tough to count out a guy who's gone through a lot in his career. And when the back started hurting, Graves did what he does best.
He sucked it up and played ball.
Contact Andrew Soukup at asoukup@nd.edu. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Thursday, February 7, 2002
