Kyle Turris

Kyle Turris is good. To quote Marv Alberts’ head, he’s really showing what a man with a cannon in his chest can do.

I never got around to posting my star-rankings for recruits(super-sorry, btw), because I was never really satisfied with how it looked. In my first draft of it though, Kyle Turris was the only player to get a 5-star rating. I eventually ended up bumping a couple guys up, but to start, it looked like Turris and then everybody else. And that is what it has looked like so far this year. Turris, and then everybody else.

So far this year, Kyle Turris has an NCAA-best 12 points through Wisconsin’s first four games. Of course it should be noted that two of those four games were against Robert Morris, a team that has pulled off a couple upsets in the past, but in general, doesn’t have the talent that Wisconsin has. And call me provincial, but I think there is always a big difference in intensity between a WCHA conference game, regardless of which WCHA teams are playing, and a non-conference game, even if the non-conference games are against quality opponents. So I don’t think it’s all that likely that this scoring pace can continue once he gets into conference play and goals are tougher to come by.

But still, it’s really hard to ignore a kid averaging three points per game right out of the gate like Turris is. He’s been every bit as good as he was advertised to be. There’s no way he’ll come close to Paul Kariya’s amazing freshman season at Maine, but he does have the chance to put up 60-70 points and be one of the NCAA’s leading scorers, which is truly a remarkable feat for a freshman playing in the WCHA.

It’s looking more and more likely that this will be Turris’ only season at Wisconsin, but it should be a joy to watch.