UAlbany Men's Basketball: Al Turley

Al Turley dunked the ball powerfully with both hands. The mammoth University of Albany freshman center made the basket shake. He soon realized he'd made a big mistake.

It was 10 minutes before the season opener against Bucknell, the first game of Turley's college career. Dunking in warm-ups warrants a technical foul, if the officials see it. Which they did.

"I didn't know the rule," Turley recalled with regret on Thursday. "Someone was like, 'Why did you do that?' I said, 'Oh, crap.' I messed up." Bucknell made both foul shots and led 2-0 before the opening tip.

"Coach (Will Brown) was laughing at me and said, 'Welcome to college basketball,' " Turley said. "Coach Brown didn't really get too mad at me. Everybody was making fun of me and just telling me not to do it anymore."

Just consider it the ongoing education of Turley, a 6-foot-7, 267-pounder from Houston who's learning about everything from a new reduced-fat diet to the harsh Northeast weather. He's starting to come around.

Brown said he's planning to increase Turley's playing time starting with Saturday's home game against Boise State, a team with a strong inside game.

"I think he can have a real positive impact on us because he brings us a low-post presence," Brown said. "And he's a ball-getter. He'll go find the ball off the glass." In UAlbany's past two games, Turley provided energetic play in 14 minutes against Duke and 13 against St. Francis, after he barely played in the previous four games.

Turley's in better shape now, losing 40 pounds since his arrival on campus this summer. He's also finally playing with the aggressiveness Brown wants. "He's a big teddy bear, and that's his biggest weakness right now," Brown said. 'But he's made really good progress."

Enough progress to possibly move to the forefront of UAlbany's center-by-committee approach, which hasn't yielded many results so far.

UAlbany has started either junior Jimmie Covington or sophomore Brett Gifford in the pivot in every game this season, and they're averaging a combined 3.7 points and 4.3 rebounds in 24.4 minutes per game.

The more athletic Turley is getting 8.7 minutes per contest, a figure Brown wants to push to more than 20 once America East Conference play arrives. "I'm happy about that," Turley said. "I've been working. I've been trying to learn everything I need to learn to get on the court. I'm just starting to figure it out."

He's also adjusting to life without burgers and cookies, part of his new diet.
"If (the UAlbany coaches) see me with that, they might kill me," Turley said. "I love food, and they're giving me a menu that's healthy, but something I might want to eat."

Turley grew up in Louisiana and moved to Houston at 14 years old because his family felt the schools were better there. As a result, he'd been in the snow only once before getting to Albany.

"It was fun because I was helping my teammates clean off their cars," Turley said.

If all goes according to plan, he'll be helping them more on the court very soon.

Courtesy: M Singelais