ASU basketball’s Torian Graham: Racial slurs led to flipping off UA fans
Jan 12, 2017, 6:46 PM | Updated: Jan 14, 2017, 12:36 pm
Welcome to the rivalry, Torian Graham.
Leaving pregame warmups Thursday in McKale Center, the Arizona State shooter showed his lack of love for the Arizona Wildcats fans by giving them a double-finger point of the middle finger variety.
Graham apologized on Twitter after the game and said he reacted to racial slurs yelled his way.
https://twitter.com/Torian_Graham/status/819763445893648385
Graham’s tweet was later deleted. Arizona investigated Graham’s claim of racial slurs being uttered his way and released a statement on the matter Friday night.
UofA has released a statement on their investigation into whether a ZonaZoo member yelled a racial slur at Torian Graham: pic.twitter.com/EKcIw6w79X
— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) January 14, 2017
Also on Friday, Graham released an official statement through the school.
“I am truly sorry for my actions to everyone associated with the game last night and for losing focus after the early part of warmups,” Graham said. “What I did should never happen and there is no excuse. I apologize for all of this and other concerns I had I will handle the right way internally with proper guidance.”
Prior to the game, Arizona fans near the tunnel had already given ASU head coach Bobby Hurley a rowdy welcome, but as usual, he was wearing headphones and probably avoided hearing any stings the Wildcat fans sent his way.
Hurley, of course, added fuel to the rivalry game last week when, after a win over Colorado in Tempe, he told his team, “if anyone wants to win here, they better go to [expletive] Tucson.”
Arizona head coach Sean Miller played off the locker room rallying cry earlier this week.
“I don’t think he meant that (his comments) in a derogatory fashion towards our program or things here in Tucson as much as making sure that his guys believe in themselves and know that the objective is to be a tough team to play against and to win, and I respect that,” Miller said.
It’s Hurley’s second go-around in the ASU-Arizona rivalry. And he got off to quite the start in Territorial Cup lore when, last year, he was ejected in the final minutes of a home loss to the Wildcats.
The anti-Hurley signs were out in full force Thursday night in Tucson.
Welcome to the McKale Center. The @ZonaZooOfficial is ready for Bobby Hurley and the Sun Devils. pic.twitter.com/nJUiueO381
— Braiden Bell (@braiden_bell) January 13, 2017
