Ohio St. turning to Turner more than ever
Posted: Friday, October 30, 2009 9:48 AM
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Big Ten
Thad Matta’s no dummy. Ohio State enters the season without a good option at point guard, so he’s doing the next best thing. Maybe even the better thing.
Evan Turner’s running the show.
This isn’t shocking news. Turner, a 6-7 junior, did just that down the stretch last season, particularly late in games when the Buckeyes didn’t have many scoring options. It resulted in All-Big Ten honors for Turner and a 22-11 season for a young Ohio State team that wasn’t deep with guards.
Turner ended up leading OSU in scoring (17.3), rebounds (7.1), assists (4.0), steals (1.8) and was its best 3-point shooter (44 percent).
As a result, expect to see Turner playing point guard more often this season. Matta wants the ball in his hands as much as possible. I’d say expect to see a lot more of him overall, but that’d be tough. He played in 90 percent of Ohio State’s available minutes last season. When you have a player like that, why not?
"Honestly, we'll use Evan just about everywhere," Matta said at the team’s media day. "Last year, when Dave (Lighty) went down, (Evan) would be your hybrid point-forward — whatever those announcers call those guys — because we played him all over. He's a guy who can do a lot of different things."
Think what Terrence Williams did for Louisville last season. The Cards swept the Big East regular-season and tournament titles en route to a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance. If Turner can help the Buckeyes to a season even close to resembling that, I expect coaches to use this technique more and more.
I mean, why wait for another guy to get your best player the ball when that player can handle it himself?
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