KNOXVILLE – Last week’s news that senior guard Lamonte Turner would be stepping away from the Tennessee men’s basketball team to have season-ending shoulder surgery shook everyone in and around the program.
But life goes on, and the Volunteers (8-3) host Wisconsin (6-4) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the final tuneup before beginning Southeastern Conference play next weekend. There could be help on the way in the form of international guard Santiago Vescovi, who officially signed in late November and will be joining the program next week.
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes noted Thursday that whether Vescovi plays this season will be contingent on the Vols’ newest member.
There will be opportunities, though, especially now that the Vols have just eight scholarship players, with four of them freshmen. Barnes and his staff have the challenge of putting together combinations that could be effective in the meantime.
The loss of Turner hurts, however. He had played 369 of a possible 440 minutes and had accounted for 18% of the team’s scoring and 45% of its assists this season. A look at all of the lineup combinations shows just how vital he was to the team’s success: Tennessee’s top eight lineups as far as minutes played together all feature Turner; four of the top five lineups in plus-minus (which measures how good a unit is together) also feature him.