MSU's Phil Turner averages 5.5 points off the bench.

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I spoke this afternoon with MSU junior Phil Turner, a former starter turned top reserve and the prototypical “energy guy.” I’ll be writing about him for Friday’s Daily Journal, but I’d like to share excerpts from the interview.

It’s not a secret that Turner misses being a starter. He’s hinted at it before, and today he told me, “I’m not the coach, I don’t make the decisions of who starts and who plays and who doesn’t. Of course, I would like to have a bigger role on the team, but I have to accept to do the best I can in the role that I’ve been given.”

So he’s saying the right things, which is good. He’s a team player, and when he’s out there – 20.2 minutes per game – he’s a difference-maker. The thing about being the “energy guy,” though, is it’s not something he can just turn on and off.

“I just feel like it’s part of my personality. I don’t put too much thought into it, I just kind of let it happen. To say I take it on as a role, I don’t think I can say that.”

Turner said there have been games this season where MSU lacked energy, but he doesn’t think that was the case in Saturday’s loss to Tennessee, when the Volunteers raced to a 17-0 lead and won 75-59.

“I don’t feel like we were flat or were lacking energy, I just felt like Tennessee just came out a little better prepared than we did.”

I asked Turner if there was one teammate in particular who he had trouble firing up. Not surprisingly, the answer was the stone-faced Barry Stewart. “He’s one of those guys that he is going hard every possession, every time, but it’s kind of hard for me to get him going.”