Tyler Griffey trucks upward, one arm clutching a basketball under his armpit while the other swings at his side, his feet ascending step by step to the concourse between the A and B sections of Assembly Hall.

“You ready for this?” the senior forward shouts in his rebounder’s direction.

Freshman guard Mike LaTulip swivels his head around as Griffey rears back and hurls the ball at the basket like a quarterback.

The gym stops. The few managers taping down the floor lock their eyes on the soaring ball, which almost magnetically draws more spectators as it moves across its plane, edging toward the basket.

It misses off the far end of the rim but was dangerously close to swishing through the net.

The spectators’ disappointment begs Griffey to try again.

“You’re not, not staying up there,” LaTulip shouts back, as a smile cracks his face.

Griffey is relishing the moment while he can. It’s Tuesday, three practices before his final game at Assembly Hall, and he’s exploring the range of the building.

LaTulip can’t help himself. He climbs up the steps and joins his fellow sharpshooter, chucking balls at the hoop as the rest of the players file out onto the court.

A little fun would do Griffey some good. He needs to take his mind off things.

Before Tuesday, Griffey hadn’t given much thought to graduation. Now it’s all anybody wants to talk about. The Illini men’s basketball team hadn’t even started its afternoon practice, yet three people had already asked for Griffey’s response to playing the final home game of his Illinois career.

“I think I can speak for the rest of the fellow seniors, we’re just concentrated on getting a win on Saturday,” Griffey said. “This has got postseason implications.”

While he wants to avoid the subject, nostalgia eventually becomes unavoidable. He reminisces about the times he’s had in Assembly Hall: starting against Michigan State in front of a national audience on ESPN’s College GameDay in 2009, recording the game-winning layup against No. 1 Indiana on Feb. 7, watching Illinois play Purdue in his earliest memory in the arena.

The last is special.

On Feb. 2, 2008, two days after Griffey called former Illinois head coach Bruce Weber to commit to the program, he visited Champaign hoping to see former Boilermakers forward Robbie Hummel, one of his favorite players at the time.

Griffey had just become the final piece to Weber’s puzzle.

He was not only the last of Brandon Paul, D.J. Richardson and Joseph Bertrand to commit to Illinois’ 2009 recruiting class, but 2010 recruits Jereme Richmond, Meyers Leonard and Crandall Head had all committed before Griffey.

For that reason, he didn’t even think fans realized he was in the building.

“Crandall was up here as well, he had just committed,” Griffey said. “I remember I walked up to go get a soda, and everyone was telling me, ‘Welcome to the family, congratulations.’”

Those same steps Griffey hiked up to get a soda as a senior in high school are now the ones he climbs down after he finishes chucking shots with LaTulip to pass time before Tuesday’s practice.

He now feels very much a part of the Illinois family and is insistent that his greatest moment as a member of it is still ahead of him.

Short of a deep Big Ten Tournament or NCAA tournament run in the next few weeks, that might be tough. Griffey will forever own one of the most important highlights in Illinois basketball history. His layup against Indiana gave Illinois its third win over a top-ranked team in school history and first since knocking off Wake Forest in 2004.

But Griffey didn’t really arrive as an offensive threat until this year under first-year coach John Groce. In three seasons under Weber, Griffey never averaged more than 4.9 points per game and saw his minutes get cut from 8.4 per game in his freshman year to just 6.5 as a sophomore.

Despite frequent reports that Griffey might actually be the best shooter on the team, he had to wait for his opportunity to be a regular contributor.

After reaching the Sweet 16 in 2010-11 behind a roster led by four seniors, the Class of 2009 had to prematurely carry the 2011-12 Illini, which missed the postseason, ending Weber’s reign as head coach.

Groce saw Griffey’s potential as a long-distance sniper from the outset, but Griffey has shot his team in and out of games this season. He single-handedly saved Illinois’ early season chances by draining a buzzer-beating 3-pointer against Gardner-Webb on Nov. 25. But during Illinois’ horrid streak where it lost six of seven games, Griffey was in a disastrous rut, when he was 0-for-20 from 3-point range. Entering Sunday’s contest against Michigan, he had missed his last eight from distance, shying away from shooting after missing five 3’s against Purdue on Feb. 13.

“I think I’m going to make every shot,” Griffey said. “Some people say I turn down shots. Maybe I didn’t catch it right, but I only take shots I’m confident I’ll make. I don’t want to shoot just to shoot. One of my favorite quotes is: ‘It’s not my shot, it’s our shot.’ It’s our team’s shot.”

Under Groce, that team dynamic appears like it’s finally working. With just three games remaining before the Big Ten Tournament, Griffey’s recruiting class might be headed to its second NCAA tournament appearance in the twilight of its run at Illinois.

“I think we came in with a lot of expectations. Maybe we have, maybe we haven’t lived up to those,” Griffey said. “We’ve been through some really high ups and some really low lows, but I’m proud at how we’ve battled through it.

“Not once at any point in our careers have we thought about leaving this place. We’re Illini for life, and we look forward to being part of the family forever.”

Unfortunately, everyone has to leave this place eventually, whether they’re thinking about it or not. So far, Griffey has no set plan to pursue basketball after college. This could very well be the end.

He’ll always remember that first Assembly Hall soda and the family that welcomed him just like he’ll always remember that Indiana layup. To continue building the memories, his team will have to ascend, one step at a time.

Ethan can be reached at [email protected] and @AsOfTheSky.