Lamonte Turner to undergo shoulder surgery, done for the season

You’ve watched Lamonte Turner play his final game as a Tennessee Volunteer.

The senior point guard will undergo shoulder surgery that will end his final season in Knoxville. Turner made the announcement after Tennessee’s win over Jacksonville State.

Turner was clearly bothered this season by the issue, shooting just 29 percent from the field. He was shooting 23 percent from three-point range, down from 32 percent last season.

With Grant Williams, Admiral Schofield, Jordan Bone and Kyle Alexander out of the picture, this was supposed to be Jordan Bowden and Lamonte Turner’s chance to shine as primary options. Unfortunately for Turner, his season will be cut short.

It will now be up to Bowden to lead this team, which suddenly lacks experience. Josiah-Jordan James will now take over the lead guard role.

Will this force Tennessee’s hand to play Santiago Vescovi? You would think that it would almost have to.

The 2020 four-star point guard will enroll next week at Tennessee, but the plan laid out by Rick Barnes on Friday was to sit him until next season. Barnes now may have to play him out of necessity. Davonte Gaines and Jalen Johnson are the only scholarship guards left.

In a rough final season, at least we got one more look at what made Turner so special against VCU. There was never a big shot that he didn’t want to take. He was Tennessee’s go-to shooter in crunch time — a true cold-blooded killer.

So in the matter of a week, Tennessee has dropped two games and lost their senior leader at point guard. Rick Barnes has a lot to figure out ahead of SEC play in a couple of weeks.