The go-to guy on the LSU men’s basketball team will be a mystery entering this season for the first time in nearly a decade.
The Tigers had perennial scorers in guard Marcus Thornton and forwards Tasmin Mitchell, Glen Davis, Brandon Bass and Stromile Swift in years past to rely on offensively.
This year will be a change of pace, as LSU coach Trent Johnson says the Tigers don’t have an obvious big-time scoring threat.
“I don’t think we’re going to have a guy on this team that you can look out there and say is an all-league performer or a guy that’s going to come up and hit you in the face with 30 and 25 points,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he expects an assortment of players to score between nine and 12 points each game until one separates himself.
Mitchell averaged 16.8 points per game last season. Thornton contributed more than 19 points per game from 2007 to 2009. Davis averaged 17.7 points per game in the 2006-07 season and averaged 18.6 the year before.
LSU has had a player average at least 15 points per game every season since the 1999-2000 season when Swift led the Tigers with 16.2 points per game.
Sophomore forward Eddie Ludwig said he’s not sure if the trend will continue this year, and the lack of a veteran scorer is the biggest change in this season’s team.
“It seems like we’re going to have 10-plus guys scoring,” Ludwig said. “We’re going to have a scoring leader for every single game, and I think it could vary each game.”
The Tigers lost Mitchell and guard Bo Spencer, their top-two scorers from last season.
The third-leading scorer was then-sophomore forward Storm Warren, who averaged 11.8 points per game. Following Warren was a medley of LSU players who averaged fewer than five points per game.
Ludwig said spreading the rock could be beneficial for the Tigers this year until they find a primary scorer. He said Warren is the team’s “best player coming back from last year,” but outside of Warren, he doesn’t know who the leading scorer could be.
“If we had that one guy it’d be nice,” Ludwig said. “But we don’t, so we have to use what we’ve got.”
Warren has been battling every day in practice with junior forward Malcolm White, who averaged 7.2 points per game and shot 50 percent his sophomore season with Ole Miss before transferring to LSU. Johnson said White is the one guy he’s most comfortable putting on the floor this season because of his experience and physicality, and he has been working with White offensively in the offseason.
“He has a very good understanding in the low post, and we’ve tried to, during individual workouts, expand his game to medium-range jump shots,” Johnson said.
All four incoming LSU freshmen averaged at least 16 points per game in their senior years of high school. Guard Andre Stringer and forward Matt Derenbecker, freshmen, were two-time Gatorade Players of the Year.
Stringer, who scored 61 points in one high school game, was the all-time leading scorer at Forest Hill High School in Jackson, Miss.
Johnson said Stringer, who is competing with junior Chris Bass and sophomore Daron Populist at point guard, has a “chance to be special.”
“Andre is a guy that right now is going to have a lot of freedom like I always do with guys who have a skill set like him,” Johnson said. “We’d like to see what he can do offensively.”
But Johnson said he doesn’t want to speculate who will be the leading scorer before any games have been played.
“I’ll have a better idea after we go through these scrimmages against Southern Miss at their place on Oct. 23 and after we scrimmage Tulane at their place the following week,” Johnson said.
LSU was picked by the media Monday to finish fifth in the SEC West this season, one year after the Tigers finished last in the division at 2-14 in league games.
Florida and Mississippi State were picked to win the SEC East and West, respectively, while the Gators were tabbed as the preseason favorite to win the overall crown.
No LSU players were named to the all-conference preseason teams.
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Contact Rowan Kavner at [email protected]