Ralston Turner playing through knee injury

This explains some things--Mark Gottfried mentioned this week that Ralston Turner isn't 100% healthy right now, and that Turner has been sitting out practices. The extent of  the injury is unclear, but it hasn't been serious enough to prevent Turner from playing in games.

Gottfried on the subject:

With Ralston, he has had some issues with his knee a little bit, it has been swollen a lot.

I have actually held him out of practice for about five or six days. I think, No. 1, we have got to get him healthy. He has got to be able to be healthy and have some bounce, jump and quickness.

It is also hard to be an effective player when you don't practice much, so there is a fine line. We definitely need Ralston to have fresh legs and, hopefully, no issues with his knee, and we will see how he plays

I guess this was a good time for an extended break in between games.

Turner's production has declined in recent weeks, so the knee definitely seems to be bothering him. Against Wake Forest, he was only 3-13 from the field, including 2-9 from three. In game prior to that one, against Georgia Tech, he finished 2-11 from the field. Turner hasn't posted an eFG% of 50.0 or above since the Clemson game on Jan. 28, in there he just barely reached that mark on 4-10 (2-6 from three) shooting. Since the calendar turned, he's shooting 34.3% inside the arc, which has been a big part of the problem.

When Turner is healthy, he's capable of making a handful of three-pointers and being a major difference-maker in any given game. NC State's going to need that kind of support from him, or at the very least more efficient shooting, to make a push to the NCAAs this month. Let's just hope this is not an injury that he'll have to play through for the rest of the year.