Last offseason, Lamonte Turner had to have a procedure done on his shoulder to fix some issues. Now, he’s had his shoulder worked on for the second-straight offseason.
Tennessee announced on Tuesday that the rising redshirt senior guard underwent “an arthroscopic procedure” on his left shoulder to “address lingering issues from this past season.” Turner’s activity on the court will be limited “for several weeks” according to Tennessee.
Turner spent some of last offseason recovering from a procedure on his shoulder and didn’t play for the Vols until their match-up with Louisville on November 21st, missing the first three games of the regular season. He participated in that game and contests against Kansas and Eastern Kentucky before sitting for the next six games due to issues with his shoulder.
The redshirt junior returned for the Vols’ SEC opener against Georgia, and he appeared back to his old self after scoring 21 points on 6-of-8 shooting and 3-of-4 shooting from three in Tennessee’s victory against Arkansas on January 15th. Turner was still in a bench role at that point, but he earned a starting nod against West Virginia and had his best game of the season at that point, scoring 23 points and dishing out five assists while making eighto of his 10 field goals.
From that game till the Vols’ home victory against South Carolina, Turner played well as a starter, averaging 13.8 points and 4.7 assists while shooting 59.6 percent overall and 48.4 percent from three in that six-game stretch.
But then Turner hit a wall.
During the Vols’ blowout loss to Kentucky in Rupp Arena, Turner turned in his worst game of the season and one of the worst games of his career. He went 0-for-7 from three and totaled just four points. He would bounce back with 12 points against Vanderbilt in UT’s next game and scored 17 points against Ole Miss on the road that following week, but his shooting touch seemed to disappear.
In a seven-game stretch from that Kentucky game to the Vols’ last regular season contest against Auburn, Turner made just six of his 42 three-pointer attempts (14.5 percent) and averaged just 7.3 points a game.
Many speculated at the time that Turner’s shoulder issues had resurfaced and that his poor play was because of that.
Once Tennessee entered tournament play, though, Turner finally found his rhythm again. In the Vols six tournament games in the SEC and NCAA Tournaments, Turner made 13 of his 31 threes (41.9 percent) and averaged 13.2 points per game.
It doesn’t appear as though Turner will miss significant time with his shoulder procedure this offseason, and it’s taking place earlier than his procedure last offseason did.
As a redshirt junior, Turner averaged 11.0 points, 3.8 assists and 2.8 rebounds while shooting 42.2 percent overall and 32.0 percent from three. Turner appeared in 28 games and made 19 starts.
