High-flying plays a slam dunk for Mitchell

By Rob Miech

Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Folks around Neptune, N.J., hadn’t seen anything like DeShawn Mitchell in … well, forever.

Seven years ago, as a seventh-grader, the UNLV freshman swingman dunked in a game on the Knicks court inside the sprawling Rebounds basketball complex.

The other three courts in Building 3 on Heck Avenue bear logos of the Nets, Celtics and 76ers.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Mitchell, a lefty, said after Wednesday’s practice at the Thomas & Mack Center. “I had missed a dunk. Then, two plays later, I got the ball on a fast break.

“I just took off. Went right down the middle, with my right hand. They said I was super high. They said they had never seen anyone my age dunk like that.”

Mitchell, 19, took off from New Jersey and landed in Las Vegas, but he still doesn’t spend much time on the ground.

He electrified the crowd Tuesday night with three dunks, boosting the Rebels with a big dose of adrenaline in their 73-48 victory over Texas-Pan American.

Somehow, all three were replayed, from different angles, on the large center-court scoreboard in the middle of Wednesday’s practice.

Assorted Rebels were glued to the action, even though they’ve been watching the 6-foot-5, 205-pound Mitchell unleash his high-wire act for weeks in practice.

Tuesday night, Mitchell caused the Mack crowd to erupt, but UNLV assistant coach Lew Hill stressed patience and restraint with the dynamic young player.

Even though Hill compared Mitchell to Miami Heat guard Dywane Wade when he was at Marquette.

“Wade jumps like that,” Hill said. “Once DeShawn gets all the other stuff, you’ve got something special. Wade doesn’t really shoot the ‘three.’ He didn’t at that age, either.

“DeShawn has to get better with the ball, which he will. But he’s a freshman. Freshmen will make freshmen mistakes, but you’ll see some good things.”

There won’t be much to hear, since Mitchell is a man of few words. He often keeps to himself. He’s a bit shy until he gets on a court.

It’s not about what he says. It’s about what he shows.

“I don’t talk a lot,” Mitchell said. “I’ve always been quiet. I’d rather go out and play rather than talk.”

Once, he amazed himself when he pulled down a dunk after slipping it between his legs in mid-air.

Last summer on the Rutgers University main court, with a gym full of college coaches watching, he executed a slam after jumping over an opponent.

“That was the wildest,” Mitchell said.

Nothing, apparently, matches his journey to elite Division-I basketball. Pressed about that path, Mitchell opened up.

“It took a lot of hard work,” he said. “Everyone told me I couldn’t do that or this. As a senior, they said I’d never play D-I ball. I had no scholarship offers. I had to go to a prep school.

“All through life, people were telling me I couldn’t do anything. Nobody had confidence in me except my folks.”

Before he left Newark for a tryout at the vaunted Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., friends, or those whom Mitchell had considered friends, were blunt.

“They said, ‘Save your gas … no point in going to Oak Hill … don’t bother going down for that trip,’” he said. “That has always stuck with me.”

With scant time available on the Oak Hill A team, Mitchell played on the academy’s B team. That reserve squad played the top prep teams in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Still, there were no D-I suitors. He went to Monmouth Academy, in Howell, N.J., to work on his game and hone his defensive skills, and he committed early to UNLV.

Illinois of the Big Ten Conference and Kentucky of the Southeastern Conference were some of the programs after him, but he trusted Rebels coach Lon Kruger and his staff.

“They kept everything real,” Mitchell said. “Other people were telling me stuff, feeding me everything and telling me what I wanted to hear.

“Coach Kruger told me how I will play defense. He kept telling me how I’d really have to work hard. Plus, I like the basketball tradition here.”

Four younger siblings look up to him, and his three brothers try to copy all of his dunks. Taj, with the skinny frame, might have older brother DeShawn’s hops. Elijah is more of a shooter.

“They love it,” Mitchell said. “I cherish that. I work my little brothers harder than I work myself.”

Tuesday’s right-handed tomahawk jam is a regular feature in Mitchell’s arsenal. At an early age, he banged his left pinkie so hard on a dunk he broke it.

He switched to his right hand, and Mitchell has become a dual dunking machine from all angles.

“It’s a God-given talent,” he said. “I have been able to succeed because of my athletic ability, my dunking. I was born with that.”

Delivery came in the seventh grade, on an indoor court with a Knicks logo in the middle of it.