Editors note: This is the fourth story in a five-part summer series on the Gonzaga women\u2019s basketball program.<\/p>\n
Statistically speaking, Allie Turner may not have a better season in 2025-26 than she did a year ago as a true freshman for the Gonzaga women\u2019s basketball team.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s largely because Turner won\u2019t be asked to duplicate her debut numbers. She should have plenty of help, but where that specifically comes from is still to be determined on a team with four vacancies to fill in the starting lineup.<\/p>\n
Still, there\u2019s not much that Turner can do better as an encore. She\u2019s certainly capable of leading the Zags in several statistics.<\/p>\n
A few true freshmen have had noteworthy contributions over the years for the Gonzaga women\u2019s basketball team. Turner, though, may have had the best premier as a Zag.<\/p>\n
What was so striking about Turner last season was her consistency. She was named the West Coast Conference\u2019s Player of the Week eight times.<\/p>\n
Turner finished as Gonzaga\u2019s second-leading scorer, averaging 13.4 points, 3.6 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game and earned WCC Freshman of the Year and All-WCC first-team honors.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t start the first two games of the season, but after scoring 36 points and making 9 of 14 shots from 3-point range against Montana and Stanford, she was inserted into the starting role.<\/p>\n
The Zags knew Turner could shoot the 3-pointer. They saw it when she played at John Burroughs High School in St. Louis. She broke Gonzaga\u2019s single-season record of made 3-pointers, a mark that was set the year before by Brynna Maxwell (95). Turner made 105 of 230 (45.7%). She made 3s at almost the same rate as she did any other shots on the floor. She finished 46.1% from the floor (166 of 360).<\/p>\n
Turner had a respectable 3.6 to 2.7 assists-to-turnovers ratio, often finding herself hounded by an opposing team\u2019s best defender. The ratio will likely improve this season as other capable ball handlers emerge.<\/p>\n
A shooting guard in high school, Turner made the transition seamlessly to point guard. She did so leading the team in minutes at 32.7 per game.<\/p>\n
Following Gonzaga\u2019s final game last year, Turner credited the Zags\u2019 offensive schemes and her teammates for her success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it\u2019s the offense we run and my teammates give me the ball, my coach putting me in this place to have an opportunity to do that,\u201d Turner said after Gonzaga\u2019s 82-77 season-ending loss in overtime at Minnesota in the WBIT quarterfinals. \u201cGoing into the season, I didn\u2019t really know what to expect. So (it) definitely turned out pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turner was in the middle of Gonzaga\u2019s charge to the WCC regular-season championship after a 4-6 start. The Zags finished 24-11.<\/p>\n
Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier has no concern of a sophomore slump.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s going to have a great year,\u201d Fortier said.<\/p>\n
With the departure of the Truong twins two years ago, Gonzaga had a glaring need for somebody to lead from the point guard. Turner took the opportunity and flourished.<\/p>\n
Nobody, including Fortier, could have imagined what would transpire.<\/p>\n
A Zag has won WCC Player of the Year the past three seasons \u2013 Yvonne Ejim the past two and Kaylynne Truong, a point guard, in 2022-23.<\/p>\n
Truong averaged 15.9 points and shot 42.5% from 3-point range to earn the WCC\u2019s highest honor. Turner would only need to average 3.6 more points than last year and she shot better than 42.5% from 3-point range last season.<\/p>\n
Turner is the lone returning WCC first-team selection from a year when seniors dominated conference honors.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a stretch to think Turner could challenge for WCC Player of the Year. In fact, she may be tabbed the WCC preseason POY in mid-October.<\/p>\n
Fortier knows Turner will draw plenty of attention from opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, she just continues to stay steady and doesn\u2019t put too much pressure on herself,\u201d Fortier said. \u201cShe tends to do that sometimes and that makes it more challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fortier said she knows Turner will keep grinding to be the best version of herself this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe needs to get better and we need her to guard a little better, play a little more physical,\u201d Fortier said. \u201cThere are some things she knows she needs to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turner also will be asked to take on a leadership role this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking for some leadership that we didn\u2019t have to have last year,\u201d Fortier said. \u201cThe basketball stuff will come together, I\u2019m not concerned about that from her. It\u2019s some of the leadership pieces that we need to continue to work on. I know she\u2019s working on them right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ejim took Turner under her wing last year and she couldn\u2019t have learned from a better leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editors note: This is the fourth story in a five-part summer series on the Gonzaga women\u2019s basketball program.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-35712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}