There were moments early on when RaiQuan Gray questioned whether he could truly play at this level.

As he redshirted as a freshman, Gray watched the Florida State men's basketball team make an Elite Eight run without him ever stepping foot on the court.

He was too heavy. And in practices, he was routinely having to go up against the likes of Phil Cofer and Mfiondu Kabengele on a daily basis.

It wasn't a great confidence boost.

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"It was tough," Gray said. "I'm not going to say it was easy. Redshirting is definitely not an easy thing. I think only the strong survive throughout that process. It was difficult. Some nights, I questioned was I good enough to play at this level."

Gray, now a redshirt junior, remembers struggling with it for a few weeks: "Maybe even a month."

Florida State associate head coach Stan Jones believes it might have been even longer.

"The first third of it, he didn't handle it very well at all," Jones said. "In fact, one day, late December or early January, we were doing our pregame [drills for redshirts] ... and I started the workout and said, 'Dude, you waste 25 percent of the workout before you start buying in because you've got your head [somewhere else]. ... You're wasting my time.'"

Jones told the young forward that if he didn't want to invest in himself, he could just go warm up with the rest of the team before games and not go through the extra developmental drills.

He told him it was up to him if he wanted to get better.

"It kind of clicked home with him," Jones remembered. "And from that point on, he really started locking in and being ready for the workout and squeezing everything he could get out of each workout. And he started seeing results in practice."

Three years later, everyone is seeing the results.

The 6-foot-8 Gray has become one of the most versatile and productive players in the ACC.

There might not be another player in the conference this season that has led his team in scoring (twice), rebounding (six times), assists (twice), steals (six times) and blocks (five times) like Gray has.

"As the young people say in today's basketball jargon, he has a lot of stuff in his bag," Jones said. "He's able to do a lot of things that impact winning. And as he continues to go forward, and if he continues to maximize his development, he's going to be another guy that is going to surprise some people and give himself an opportunity at the next level to carve out a career.

"Because he can fill so many roles for a team."

Gray finished with 19 points, 8 rebounds and 3 steals in the No. 16 Seminoles' loss at Georgia Tech on Saturday. In his last five games overall, Gray is averaging 15.2 points on 58.3 percent shooting from the floor.

He has become an indispensable player for the Seminoles at both ends of the floor, and he's having the type of impact he expected when he arrived at FSU after winning a state championship at Dillard High in Fort Lauderdale.

"It was a lot of thoughts," Gray says of that tough freshman season. "Emotions up and down as far as questioning if I'm good enough or did I make the right choice. Stuff like that. But my coaches, they had a plan for me. And we stuck to that plan, and we just followed it. They guided me.

"It was extremely hard, seeing my teammates and the success we were having (making the Elite Eight). ... I just wanted to be a part of that."

There were many lessons to be learned along the way.

One of the first was understanding the type of effort that would be required to compete against guys like Cofer and Kabengele in practice.

"Phil is a super physical guy. Mfiondu is a super physical guy," Gray said. "If you're not being physical, [then] you're going to get eaten alive. So that kind of helped me change my mentality.

"They brought that fire and passion every day, and I think that kind of trickled down on me. That's what I try to do now."

As a redshirt freshman in 2019, Gray averaged 3.9 points and 2.3 rebounds. As a sophomore, he averaged 6.0 points and 3.8 rebounds. This year, he's averaging 10.2 points, 6.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.5 steals.

He's gone from role player to vital starter, while continuing to elevate his game.

Gray admits that he didn't talk much to his friends back home while he was redshirting. He didn't want to answer their questions about why he wasn't playing ... over and over and over again.

"I kept my circle super small," Gray said. "And I focused on what I needed to focus on."

Which was getting in better shape and just, "sharpening everything. Because Coach Ham (Leonard Hamilton) wanted me to play all positions."

And that's exactly what he does.

Gray has played everything from point guard to center this season. He has blossomed into a team leader, and he's become a great teaching tool for other guys who come through the program and may not be happy with their early playing time.

He's a major reason why the Seminoles are 10-3 overall, 6-2 in the ACC and a threat to repeat as ACC champions.

Looking back, Gray gives a great deal of credit to Hamilton, Jones and the rest of the Florida State coaching staff. He says they played an enormous role in his development.

He even mentioned former FSU assistant Dennis Gates, who is now the head coach at Cleveland State, for helping him grow.

But, as Jones points out, the lion's share of credit has to go to Gray himself.

"I think RaiQuan Gray is going to be a winner in whatever he decides to do," Jones said. "Because he has a good mind, he has a great heart, and he wants to win. When you put those kind of things into a competitive spirit, you allow yourself to maximize yourself in whatever setting you choose to be in.

"And a few more years down the road, when he's through with his playing career, I'll look back with a lot of pride in how he's taken himself and transformed himself from an unsure young kid into a young man who's going to make a great impact on his family."

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