Iowa fans, Evan Turner can take your taunts

One of America's finest college basketball players will play in Carver-Hawkeye Arena Wednesday night, and he can handle a little verbal abuse. Or a lot.

Ohio State's Evan Turner, seemingly a surefire Top 5 NBA draft pick five months from now, got a lot of lip from West Virginia fans last Saturday in the Mountaineers' 71-65 win over the Buckeyes in Morgantown.

Whatever the West Virginians yelled at Turner, it wasn't nice, as Doug Lesmerises' Cleveland Plain-Dealer blog dispatch tells us. A portion of Doug's piece:

Who knows what Iowa fans might yell at Evan Turner when Ohio State goes to Iowa on Wednesday night, but it probably won't match what the West Virginia fans offered up on Saturday. Turner said immediately after that loss he didn't hear what the Mountaineers' student section was chanting at him for part of the game, using a four-letter word seldom heard in chant form. Tuesday afternoon, Turner said all that comes with the territory of being a great player, though he seemed like he wasn't able to completely ignore it, especially when the taunts get more personal on the Internet.

"I just laugh it off," Turner said. "There are people on my Facebook and they just write the most ignorant things. I just find it funny, because I'm a pretty nice guy, pretty respectful of people. If we knew each other, I'm sure we'd be good friends. But at the same time, they decide to do what they do and I'm not going to partake in it."

Turner fractured bones in his back in a game on Dec. 5. At the time, it was said he would miss two months of the season. He missed just six games, and has averaged 20.8 points in his last five outings.

After a lot of soul-searching and hand-wringing, I'm opting to attend the OSU-Iowa game Wednesday rather than Drake-UNI because a) I'll have a few more opportunities to catch the Panthers in Cedar Falls this season; b) Iowa has won three of its last four games, and I want to see if this wave can continue against a decent team and c) It's a chance to see Turner.

In the last two weeks, I've seen Texas' Damion James. I've seen Kansas' Cole Aldrich and Xavier Henry, two probable lottery picks. Aldrich, by the way, is a really, really, really good center.

Now I get to see the 6-foot-7 junior Turner, who has these averages:

18.6 points, 9.8 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.6 steals, 0.9 blocks, 56.2 percent field goal percentage.

Turner has two triple-doubles this season (three if you count a game in which he had 10 turnovers), and was two assists shy of another on Jan. 19 vs. Northwestern. College players don't get triple-doubles.

Turner played all 40 minutes in two of his last four games. If he plays 40 minutes against Iowa, it's a good thing for the Hawkeyes. Well, sort of.

If you want to play one of ESPN.com's little games and see where Turner will go in this year's NBA draft, click here.

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