Before Saturday’s game against Miami, Ball State freshman point guard Zavier Turner was honored with the 2012-13 Mini Mr. Basketball award by Hoosier Basketball Magazine. The honor is awarded to the top player in the state under six feet tall.
During the game, he showed why he’s deserving.
Turner scored a career-high 24 points in the 64-52 loss to the RedHawks.
“The one thing he’s proven every day is he can flat out shoot the ball,” Ball State head coach James Whitford said.
Turner finished the game 5-of-9 from the field, with four of those coming from beyond the three-point line.
As a team, Ball State made just a third of its shots, 13-of-39. Turner contributed to nearly half of those makes.
He went 10-of-12 from the free throw line on Saturday. That brought his average down from 91.1 percent to 89.5 percent for the season. Coming into the game, he was 12th in the country in free throw percentage. He’s now ranked No. 20.
While Ball State had obvious difficulties shooting the ball on Saturday, the biggest challenge seemed to just be moving the ball up the floor. Turner and the rest of the Ball State offense struggled all game to break through Miami’s press and trap defense.
The RedHawks would press Turner immediately off the inbound pass, giving the 5-foot-9 guard troubles in bringing the ball up the court.
“In the press offense, he had moments where he did really well,” Whitford said. “But again, he had moments where he got frustrated. … He started trying to dribble through stuff, which we watched on film a number of times and he knows that’s not the way to do it.”
When Ball State would break through the pressure, it was often by Turner passing to Franko House near him. House would pass it back to Turner when the pressure would swing to his side. Turner would then throw it down the court to Chris Bond.
When Ball State’s offense worked well, Turner moved quickly down the court and found open shots. When it didn’t, he committed one of his six total turnovers he had in the game.
“When you move it quickly, it’s not very hard to get a good shot,” Whitford said after the game. “You have to break the pressure. That’s the hard part.”
Turner’s six turnovers were second highest on the team, and the freshman was visibly frustrated at times during the game.
“There’s no one hurting in Muncie more than him right now,” Whitford said.
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