The gesture is not to say “We are one” or “Number one.” It’s Gray’s personal tribute to his late father, Joe Washington Jr., who died during Gray’s senior basketball season at Beecher High School in Flint.

When Gray lost his father, he was left with something to share with the MSU basketball community for the last three-plus years — tenacity, work ethic and emotion.

“In everything my daddy did, he always put forth maximum effort,” Gray said. “I can remember when he would sit down and talk to me when I was younger and I didn’t understand. It seemed like he was talking about nothing. But now, when I look back and see his facial expressions, he was doing it with so much emotion. That’s just the kind of man he was.”

Out of high school, Gray was a top-25, five-star national recruit talked about in conversations with the likes of current NBA multimillionaires and ranked ahead of past and present college All-Americans, not to mention teammates Drew Neitzel and Goran Suton.

The only difference is Gray has found himself in a different situation than his incoming classmates. In three years of playing time, Gray has never averaged more than 6.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. This season, having played in each MSU contest, the 6-foot-8-inch, 235-pounder averages about 16 minutes off the bench with 4.2 rebounds and 5.2 points per game.

But those averages don’t negate how important Gray is to his team. Since he donned a green-and-white jersey, the Spartans are nearly perfect (13-1) when he scores 10 or more points.

But amidst all those numbers and high expectations, Gray seems to have found his niche. In those 15 minutes, you can almost guarantee you’ll see a high-octane Marquise Gray.

There might be some hard fouls and some missed assignments, but there will be high-flying, acrobatic dunks (he leads the team with 22) and tough rebounds.

“As long as you’re going hard and going 110 percent, even if you do make a mistake, how hard you’re going and your effort are going to make up for the mistake,” Gray said.

While Gray’s emotion often thrills MSU fans, it could be perceived as cocky or as rubbing it in an opponent’s face. But the well-intentioned Gray goes far to assure officials and his opponents that it’s just his nature. Lucky for Gray, he has MSU head coach Tom Izzo on his side.

“I don’t want to take it out of him,” Izzo said. “But I’ve also been on the other side of the coin. He is such a good guy and I don’t want anything going the other way. You have to understand the kid. He’s a high-energy kid and a great kid and I love the guy.”

When he lost a building block from his family, Gray bonded with the three brothers he lived with in order to take a piece of their father’s legacy with them.

“It was hard,” Gray said. “(It happened) right in the middle of my senior season. No matter how much you try to prepare yourself for something like that, you never can. Especially if it’s somebody you’re close to, let alone the man who made me.”

But since he left home for a new family, his MSU brothers have been the ones he leans on — and they depend on him for just as much.

“It’s huge whenever ‘Quise gets a dunk,” sophomore forward Raymar Morgan said. “The Izzone gets to jump up and down and everybody on the bench gets into the game, so whenever he can spark us like that, it’s huge for the team.”