Tyree Graham to Rutgers

Rutgers coach Mike Rice continues to add players late in the game for the 2010-11 season.

Tyree Graham, a 6-foot, 190-pound shooting guard who began at Texas Tech before moving on to a North Carolina junior college, announced on Twitter Wednesday night that he had chosen Rutgers over Texas A&M. He had initially given a verbal to A&M.

“I’m going to sign with rutgers in the morning world.. sorry UAB fans. But the guy that recruited is gone so I can’t be a BLAZER..sorry,” Graham wrote on his Twitter.

“Rutgers will be the best situation for me.”

Graham confirmed by text to ZAGSBLOG contributor Alex Kline: “Yeah man, I’m going there. I’m going to sign in the morning.”

Graham said he was doing his homework and would do an interview on Thursday.

Rutgers lost star shooting guard Mike Rosario when he transferred to Florida and would have been thin at that position, relying primarily on untested freshmen.

Graham will give Rice some experience at the position.

He joins incoming freshman Austin Carroll, Gilvydas Biruta and Mike Poole in Rutgers 2010 recruiting group. Poole said on his Twitter that he signed on Wednesday.

Graham played high school ball at Village Christian Academy in Fayetteville, N.C., where he averaged 23.7 points and 7 rebounds as a senior. He had games of 45 and 41 points as a senior and set a school record with six triple-doubles that year.

He reportedly had  offers from Wake Forest, Virginia Tech,  Baylor, Texas Tech, Kansas State, Clemson and South Carolina.

He committed to then-Texas Tech coach Bob Knight in 2007 and arrived at Tech for the 2008-09 season. He averaged 3.9 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.5 assists over 13 games but withdrew in January 2009 because his mother had open-heart surgery and he wanted to be closer to home, he told Kline.

“He wanted to get closer to home,” Tech assistant coach Stew Robinson told reporters at the time. “He had some things at home he needed to take care of that involved his family. We told him that we would help him in any way we could. It was a really big surprise.”

He landed at Supply (N.C.) Brunswick Community College and averaged 17.4 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.4 assists.

Despite a minor knee injury, he was named First Team All-Region and  MVP of the Regional Tournament. He led Brunswick to the school’s first appearance in the NJCAA tournament and scored 17 points apiece in the program’s first two games.

(Photo courtesy Texas Tech)

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