North Carolina wingman Will Graves was dismissed from the men’s basketball team Thursday after failing to comply with team rules, coach Roy Williams said in a statement released by the UNC athletic department.
The nature of Graves’ failure to comply will likely remain unknown, as the team’s policy restricts it from discussing the specifics of rule violations. But Williams did want one thing to be clear regarding the dismissal.
“This is 100 percent not related to any NCAA matters on campus,” Williams said in the statement.
Graves is a redshirt senior and would have been the Tar Heels’ lone senior on the team.
In 92 career games at UNC, Graves has scored 513 points, 353 of which he scored last season while averaging 9.8 points per game.
“I hate this for Will,” Williams said. “He worked extremely hard this summer to get himself physically in the best shape he’s been in years, but he did not do everything he needed to do to be a part of our basketball program.”
Though the specific cause of the dismissal is still uncertain, it isn’t the first time the Greensboro native has run into team-rule compliance issues.
In February 2009, Graves was suspended for the remainder of the 2008-09 season. In this incident, Williams said he suspended Graves because the guard “did not maintain the standards we expect of a Carolina basketball player.”
Graves returned for the 2009-10 season and was the Tar Heels’ third-leading scorer. The 6-foot-6 marksman was instrumental in North Carolina’s NIT run after a disappointing regular season for the Tar Heels.
