Feb. 19—It was an aha moment.
It often happens during recruiting, and there’s usually a twist or turn with every recruiting development.
Case in point is Gonzaga freshman point guard Allie Turner of St. Louis.
She wasn’t anywhere on the Gonzaga women’s basketball coaching staff’s radar.
Turner was playing in a back gym in a warehouse in Chicago when Zags coach Lisa Fortier, her assistant and husband Craig Fortier, and assistant Stacy Clinesmith were on hand watching a pair of players. Those players would end up choosing Texas and Nebraska, but there Turner was doing Turner things. That is, making 3-point shots and running an offense.
Fortier has told the story so often this season and there have been tweaks along the way. Like who really saw Turner first. It’s unclear. The fact is they saw her.
They came to find out that Turner had been discovered by Wake Forest, Colorado State and Kansas State, so Gonzaga had some recruiting competition.
Turner will be the runaway winner of the West Coast Conference Freshman of the Year award. She’s won the weekly honor seven times this season.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Turner has some experience as the new kid on the block. After all, she was a four-year starter at John Burroughs High School in St. Louis, leading the Bombers to state championships in her sophomore and senior seasons.
What makes what Turner has accomplished in her first season in college all the more remarkable is just that — it’s her first season at the NCAA Division I level.
Clinesmith said she evaluates the point guard position with a critical eye. It is the position she played and starred at while playing for Mead and UC Santa Barbara before going on to the WNBA.
When Gonzaga’s coaches saw Turner almost by accident, there was a lot to like.
Clinesmith made it her personal mission to recruit Turner. On one of her handful of trips to St. Louis to see Turner, Clinesmith went with the express purpose of watching a practice.
“I remember going out specifically to watch her practice, to see what she was like in a workout,” Clinesmith said. “I was blown away. Her work ethic. How hard and how fast she worked out. It was at game speed. She probably missed a total of five shots in an hour workout. She was shooting college 3s the whole time. I was sold. It gives me goosebumps now just thinking about it. Whenever you find a good one others know about her, too. We were up against some tough competition.”
Turner has had the second-most impactful season for the Zags behind the record-breaking Yvonne Ejim. She’s averaging a team second-best 13.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists. She leads in 3-pointers made (77), which ranks tied for eighth in the nation and first among freshmen while shooting 43.3% from 3-point range, also first on the team.
She’s made 50 more shots inside the arc, but her percentage there is only .03 better than her 3-point attempts. No doubt the coaches want her squaring up from distance.
And when she doesn’t take shots — which she did recently in a first half against Washington State — she hears about it. It’s something the coaches don’t abide.
“Every time she shoots a 3, I think it’s going in,” Clinesmith said. “Every time she passes up a shot, I get so mad.”
There’s another statistic in which she leads the Zags — minutes played a game (32.9).
The first time Gonzaga’s coaches saw Turner, it was the summer before her junior year. They weren’t sure if they’d recruit her because they weren’t sure what the plans the Truong twins had — whether they’d play two more years at GU, including a fifth season.
“If the Truongs hadn’t come back, we would have had to get a point guard (in front of Turner),” Lisa Fortier said. “We actually had a point guard ahead of Allie from Alaska, but she decommitted (went to Washington). It was too far out to really know what our needs were.”
The coaches knew they liked what they saw.
‘We liked the way she shot it,” Fortier said. “I actually think it’s funny to think back to when you’re watching them. We recognized she had a nice floor presence. She had a calming influence.
“She’s heady and smart.”
Even before her arrival at Gonzaga last summer, it was difficult to determine what role Turner have this season. She began the transition well during summer workouts, but initially it was thought she’d come off the bench.
Injuries forced Fortier to increase Turner’s role and responsibilities. No freshman guard, including the one (Courtney Vandersloot) whose jersey hangs in the rafters at McCarthey Athletic Center, has had an impact like Turner.
“We thought she was going to come off the bench and maybe be the sixth player of the year, someone who comes in and gives us quality minutes,” Fortier said.
Turner had realistic thoughts about what her impact would be this year.
“I didn’t think this would be the situation, but some people were hurt coming into the season,” she said.
“So there just happened to be an opportunity. I’m lucky that that happened to me and it’s fun in the moment, because I realize that most people in this program who are freshmen don’t get that opportunity. So i just try to make the most of it and they give me a lot of grace cause I’m a freshman.”
Fortier doesn’t like to talk about expectations.
“We try to focus on opportunities or possibilities and not expectations or whatever,” Fortier said. “Because if you focus on expectations, you limit yourself. The possibilities for her are endless. She could end up there on the wall (Volker Center, photos of former standouts). She wants to be up on that wall. There’s possibilities to do things (Ejim) is doing. She just keeps growing and it’s really fun to watch.”
Turner’s high school coach, Jacob Yorg, had an idea Turner would have an immediate impact.
“What she has done for this program and school is something we will all miss,” Yorg said in a story last year. “I know she will continue to grow and learn from the amazing coaches she will get to work with and become the best version of herself.”
Turner scored 1,652 points in high school.
A single child, Turner wanted to go somewhere outside of Missouri. She fell in love with the coaches, culture and play in front of a lot of fans. She found that at Gonzaga, including immediate family.
Clinesmith said the area that Turner has grown most is decision making. It’s reflected in fewer turnovers for herself and the team and better execution in general.
“She was thrown into the fire,” Clinesmith said. “I don’t think there’s been another freshman since I’ve been here thrown into the fire like her. There’s been a learning curve. But at this point in her freshman year, she’s like a veteran. You trust she’s going to make the right decision.”
Turner’s future is bright.
“Pretty high ceiling,” Clinesmith said. “For her to come in with the skill level she has, now it’s fine tuning. Slowing everything down and getting the pace a little slower in her head. Her ceiling is as high as I’ve ever seen in a freshman here.”
