Leader of the pack ... again

• By GARY LANEY
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 16, 2009 - Page: 1C

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

When Tasmin Mitchell put his name into the pool of available players for the NBA draft after last season, many expected him to stay in the draft instead of coming back to school for his senior season.

After all, the bulk of the LSU team that went 27-8 and won a Southeastern Conference championship last season departed. Returning to college meant coming back to a program starting over.

The leading scorer from a year ago, Marcus Thornton, is now playing for the New Orleans Hornets. Garrett Temple, the defensive ace, is in camp with the Houston Rockets. Chris Johnson, the center, is playing pro ball in Turkey. Two other seniors are gone.

The five seniors were among the top seven players in the rotation, meaning, if Mitchell came back, it would be to a team he would most likely have to carry.

Turns out, that notion didn’t bother Mitchell at all.

“It wasn’t a problem for me coming back,” Mitchell said. “I wasn’t like ‘Man, I can’t come back, because I don’t have anybody.’ I never thought about that.”

After all, for all of the stars he’s played with in college — players like Glen Davis, Tyrus Thomas, Thornton and Temple — it’s not like Mitchell has no experience being “the man” on a team.

“I’ll play with whatever,” he said. “In high school (at Denham Springs), I didn’t really have (teammates) who played basketball. In high school, I had guys who were football players and baseball players. And we won, we were successful.”

Mitchell will likely need to channel some of his high school experience, a time when he became Louisiana’s Mr. Basketball in 2005 and getting an otherwise ordinary lot of Denham Springs players to the Top 28 in 2003 and 2004.

Now, as a senior coming back after a season where he made All-SEC by averaging 16.3 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, he is again the unquestioned leader on an otherwise unheralded team.

“It’s just like the high school days; only these guys have more talent,” Mitchell said. “I led those guys (at Denham Springs High) to the state playoffs, winning seasons every year. So let’s see if I can lead these guys.”

“These guys” include only one other starter from last year: point guard Bo Spencer. Only three other returning players — guards Alex Farrer and Chris Bass and forward Storm Warren — played meaningful minutes.

The rest of the roster consists of two big men who redshirted, two freshmen recruits and four walk-ons.