ASU guard Torian Graham flips off Arizona students, backtracks on racial slur claim

A Sun Devil flipped the birds on Thursday

Before the Arizona Wildcats and Arizona State Sun Devils squared off in McKale Center on Thursday night, ASU guard Torian Graham wrote his own chapter in the rivalry when he flipped off the ZonaZoo as he walked back to the locker room about 30 minutes before tip-off.

Torian Graham lets the ZonaZoo know they're No. 1. http://pic.twitter.com/W8Dj8zeXl7

— Shane Dale (@ShaneDaleABC15) January 13, 2017

After the game, Graham tweeted out “I [apologize] for my actions, There was racial slurs said, and I didn’t react the right way as I should. My apologies to the ASU program.”

That tweet has been deleted, and it led to an investigation by Arizona.

U of A released a statement Friday night on their findings, saying "We continue to look into the accusation made by Arizona State's Torian Graham. At this time, we have not heard from anyone, including students, staff and security in proximity of the incident, who can confirm Graham's claim. While we can't say with certainty that it did not occur, we were told by people in that area that they did not hear words or language of that nature prior to, during and after the time of the incident as well as during the game. We pride ourselves on our sportsmanship, take these matters very seriously, and strive to deliver an appropriate environment for visiting teams and patrons."

Graham’s apology on Friday released by ASU looked a little different as well, saying "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. 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."

This certainly isn’t the first controversy in the UA/ASU rivalry, and won’t be the last. But Graham has etched his name into the Territorial Cup stone if you will. He is a senior, so that will be the last time he plays in McKale as an opponent.

What a way to go out.

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