BOWLING GREEN — One week after his return to the Bowling Green lineup, guard Justin Turner is likely to play Tuesday against Miami without a minutes restriction.
Turner missed five weeks of time with a hamstring injury, and the Falcons limited Turner’s playing time upon returning Dec. 31.
The Falcons closely watched Turner’s minutes to ease him back into the lineup during games last week against Hartford and Kent State. Now that he has played twice, however, BG is hopeful that Turner will be able to return to his regular workload.
“[Kent State] should’ve been his last game,” Falcons coach Michael Huger said of Turner’s minutes count. “We stuck by the rules for the first two, and now there should be no restrictions on him. All of that is cleared, and if all the doctors say everything is a full go, he’ll be back on a normal rotation.”
The Falcons used caution with Turner, waiting several weeks before letting him practice in an effort to avoid reaggravating the injury. In the lead-up to the Hartford game, Turner said he began to feel like himself again.
“I’ve had a hamstring injury before and thought I was ready, and I wasn’t,” Turner said last week. “When I could do the explosive cuts and moves that I normally do and play what’s in my game, that’s when I knew I had the confidence to get back out there on the court.”
Turner, who averaged 30 minutes per game before the injury, played 21 and 24 minutes in his two games since returning.
He scored 22 points and added 3 rebounds in his return, an 81-68 win against Hartford, but struggled along with the rest of the Falcons’ offense in a 79-61 loss to Kent State. His two points against the Golden Flashes were a career low, and Huger said he thought the minutes restriction prevented Turner from establishing a flow on offense.
Huger called Turner a “rhythm player” who rarely forces anything, but with Turner on a minutes count of between 20 and 25 minutes, the Falcons’ substitution patterns Friday were altered.
“When you’re on a count, you almost have to force it a little bit more, and he didn’t,” Huger said. “He still played at his pace, and he actually scored a bucket, got back on defense, and that’s normally the time he gets going — but I had to take him out because he had the limitations on him. That kind of hurt his rhythm.
“Then you go back in, get it going again, and I’ve got to take you back out again.”
With the restrictions likely coming to an end, the Falcons hope their rotation can go back to normal as they continue with their Mid-American Conference schedule.
After playing Miami on Tuesday at the Stroh Center, BG will travel for a Saturday road game at Ohio.
“Hopefully, now he can play a little bit longer and we can get him into a good flow,” Huger said. “That’s the biggest thing: Getting him into a good flow.”
First Published January 6, 2020, 9:03 p.m.
