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CHAPEL HILL — Will Graves is a mama’s boy, and he readily admits it. Well, his mama readily admits it, and that’s fine with Will.

She calls him William, and not just when he’s in trouble. A lot of people around here still call him William, from his high school basketball coach to the school teachers who brought him through the Greensboro system and produced a fine young man.

He’s a pretty good basketball player, too.

Graves returns home this week, a junior for North Carolina, to play in the ACC men’s basketball tournament in the Greensboro Coliseum. It’s a homecoming of sorts for a kid who grew up almost within sight of the arena, playing in Shannon Woods and riding his bike all over town looking for something to do.

“I was an only child,” he said. “I’d just get on my bike and ride around on my own.”

Roy Williams is his basketball coach now, and Williams would tell you Graves’ upbringing as an only child wandering around looking for something to do is a pretty good description of the way he plays basketball.

“He might be the smartest player on our team,” Williams said. “He knows what everybody else is doing. Everything I say, he understands.”

Graves was a precocious kid, a gifted student who might not have understood what that meant growing up.

“Everything came easy to him,” Gloria Graves , his mom, said. “He’s such a sweet thing. He would just play by himself all day long.

“And everybody liked him, so it was hard to reprimand him.”

Not that people didn’t do it anyway. Not that they still don’t.

Just last year, Graves found himself on the Carolina bench, suspended by Williams and forced to watch his teammates make their run to the national title. And even then, he was one of the best-liked players on the team, a player who was hurting inside but still smiled everywhere he went.

He doesn’t talk about the suspension, even now, only to say it was his fault.

“I violated a team rule,” he said, following the company line at Carolina. “It was on me. Coach could’ve kicked me off the team, but he gave me a chance. I respect that, and I appreciate still being on the team.”

He said the hardest part might have been calling his mom.

“She called me William,” he said. “It was hard. But I found out a lot of people had a lot of love for me and I’m well-liked and I have support from the right people. Like Coach Williams.”

Graves has had a nice junior season on a team that has struggled. He’s played almost every position on the floor, led the team in scoring and rebounding for much of the year, and personally carried the Tar Heels (16-15) to several wins with his deft shooting touch honed by hours on local asphalt courts and hardwood floors.

“He was always working on the shot,” said David Price , the Dudley basketball coach . “No one ever worked harder, by himself, than William.”

People still remember him riding his bike up Randleman Road, carrying a basketball, looking for a game.

“I had a Huffy mountain bike,” Graves said. “I’d ride it everywhere. It had 18 speeds. I’d just ride around looking for people playing.”

Then he’d hop off the bike and join them. He was always welcome. Everybody knew him.

In a recent game against Wake Forest, he and a referee were standing in the lane together laughing about something Graves had said. The game came to a halt. Whistles blew and buzzers sounded, and two teams stood and waited while Graves and the official were doubled over in the lane laughing.

Williams stood on the sideline and shook his head.

“He never stops talking,” Williams said. “The whole game. To anyone who will listen.”

Williams was asked after that game what Graves’ role was on the team, a team that uses him as a designated shooter who also plays inside at any of the post or forward positions.

“His role was almost I was ready to strangle him,” Williams said.

They have a good relationship, the coach and the precocious kid from Greensboro who sometimes likes to freelance and wait for the opportunity to take what has to be the sweetest jump shot in the ACC.

“It’s a thing of beauty,” an opposing high school coach said a couple of years ago. “I wish I could teach kids to shoot like that.”

Graves, who used to throw footballs to himself , taught himself to shoot.

The kid who learned to play tuba at Lincoln Middle School, and then realized if he played it softly he could hit any notes he felt like during concerts, taught himself to play basketball on the courts of Greensboro.

This week, the only child comes home again to play on our biggest court.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com