BATON ROUGE — SEC Player of the Week Tasmin Mitchell of the streaking LSU Tigers and women’s players Brittany Helm of UNO and Brooke Shepherd of Northwestern State were voted Louisiana Sports Writers Association Players of the Week announced after a vote of LSWA members Tuesday.
Mitchell, junior from Denham Springs, La., averaged 21.5 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and 2.5 steals in leading the Tigers to wins at Georgia and over Alabama. He made 12-of-16 of his field goal attempts in a 27-point, nine-rebound effort against Georgia. He registered his sixth double-double of the season with 16 points, 11 rebounds to go with four assists and four steals against Alabama on Sunday. Mitchell, who has scored in double figures for 12 consecutive games, shot 62.1 percent (18-of-29) from the field for the week.
Helm and Shepherd split the votes of the panel down the middle for the weekly women’s honor.
Helm, a junior guard from Baton Rouge, averaged 14.5 points and eight rebounds per game as the Lady Privateers went 2-0 on the week and extended their home winning streak to three games. She started the week with an 18-point, seven rebound effort against Florida Atlantic. Helm shot 6 of 7 from the charity stripe, part of the team’s 19-of-20 effort while dishing out three assists. In the second contest of the week against Louisiana-Monroe, while her scoring production dipped to 11 points as UNO avenged an early loss to the Warhawks, Helm found other ways to get involved, grabbing a career-high equaling nine rebounds, dishing out five assists and coming up with two steals.
Shepherd, a sophomore for the Lady Demons from Argyle, Texas, averaged 15.5 points and 6.0 rebounds for the week in a 77-64 win in overtime over McNeese and a 74-68 loss to Texas-Arlington. She scored a career-high 21 points after making a career-best eight field goals at UTA on Saturday and also pulled down nine rebounds. Shepherd made 5-of-8 from 3 point range for the game. She posted 10 points in an overtime win over McNeese State, connecting on 53 percent of her shots from the field and 60 percent (6 of 10) from 3 point range.