Texas Tech basketball all-decade team: The small forwards

Honorable mention: Justin Gray, D’walyn Roberts

Many people consider small forwards to be the glue that holds together a lineup on the court.  That’s because they do a little bit of everything.

That was a perfect description for Justin Gray.  From 2014-18, the Florida native was invaluable for the Red Raiders because he could score, defend, rebound, and distribute the ball.

Though he wasn’t ever the star of the program, as a senor in the same class that featured Keenan Evans and Zach Smith, he was a team leader who helped Tech basketball reach the Elite Eight for the first time in 2018.   That year, he averaged 5.1 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game.

For his career, the 6-foot-5, 185-pounder had career averages of 7.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.1 assists.  But he was also critical in areas that didn’t show up in the box score such as poise, leadership, basketball I.Q., and dependability.  Those are traits that make for a great small forward.

Another player at that position with similar stats to Gray was D’walyn Roberts who was a Red Raider from 2007-11.  A 4-star recruit out of Duncanville, Texas in 2007, the 6-foot-7 slasher never quite lived up to the hype that accompanied him when he arrived.

Still, he was an effective player who could leap as well as any player in the last decade of Red Raider hoops.  He averaged 5.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 0.6 assists per game and in the first two years of the decade, he averaged 7.0 p.p.g. as a junior and 6.5 p.p.g. as a senior.

Like Gray, Roberts was part of a highly-touted recruiting class as he joined point guard John Roberson and power forward Mike Singletary to form one of the highest-rated classes in Tech history.  Though that class did not do for Tech was Gray’s class did, it was one that gave us three memorable players in the early part of this decade.