Men’s basketball junior guard Loren Leath always admired NBA stars Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and shares a very special characteristic with both of them: No matter what the situation, opponent or venue is, Leath is going to put up points.

“He has an unbelievable knack for scoring,” said Hornets coach Jerome Jenkins.

Leath has more than earned his reputation this semester, leading the Hornets in scoring in six of their first seven games.

“He likes to model his game after Kobe – being that person who has to score,” said senior Hornet guard Clark Woods. “He’s a team player, but when it comes down to it, he wants to be the player to take the last shot.”

Overall this season Leath has averaged a career-high 18.1 points per game, which continues Leath’s pattern of increasing his point totals every year. He averaged 11.6 points per game as a freshman in the 2005-06 season and 12.8 as a sophomore in 2006-07.

“Give Loren a little bit of credit,” Jenkins said. “If a defender gives him enough room and he can see the rim – there’s not a shot that he doesn’t like.”

Leath has been a basketball player since the age of three, when he used to play on a Playschool set inside his home, but said basketball has “been with me since birth.”

Loren’s father, Brian, could provide the proof: he has a picture of his son sitting in a stroller while holding a basketball.

Leath played both baseball and basketball growing up in Oakland, but decided to stick with basketball exclusively as he got older. Leath said his ability to score originated from his time playing pick-up games at parks in Oakland.

“You’re not respected when you’re at the park unless you can score,” Leath said. “Playing with the older guys that were beating me up pretty good – that helped me a lot.”

Leath’s father, who played the game as a teenager and in his time with the Army, worked with Loren to improve his game and served as an assistant coach on his son’s middle school basketball team.

Leath went on to play at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland as a freshman and was also a member of the Oakland Soldiers of the Amateur Athletic Union in 2001. It was during his time with the Soldiers that he began what would become a string of run-ins with future NBA players. Current Cleveland Cavalier and NBA star Lebron James played on the Soldiers’ first-team while Leath was a member of the second-team.

“I kind of got to rub shoulders with him a couple of times,” Leath said.

Leath also met two future teammates as a member of the Soldiers: Former Hornet guard DeShawn Freeman, who played for the AAU team, and current freshman point guard Vinnie McGhee. His father was still close by, serving as an assistant coach with the Soldiers.

Leath transferred to Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, Calif. after moving to Southern California in 2001. His backcourt teammate on Birmingham’s basketball team was Jordan Farmar, who later went on to become a standout at UCLA and now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.

After his sophomore year, Leath moved once more, transferring to Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda, Calif. At Cleveland High, Leath averaged 18.5 points and 8 rebounds per game in his senior season while playing alongside Nick Young, whom Leath said is his best friend. Young was considered one of the top prospects in the country at the time and received a basketball scholarship to USC after graduating from Cleveland.

Jenkins said he saw Leath play a few times in summer basketball leagues while in high school, where he first witnessed the young guard’s ability to score.

“Whether he was starting the game, or coming off the bench in the game, he just found a way to score,” Jenkins said. “I was like, ‘wow, every time I see this man play, he gets his buckets.'”

Leath moved on to Los Angeles Valley Junior College after graduating from Cleveland High and averaged 31 points in his first two games with the school’s basketball team. He then suffered an Achilles injury that forced him to take a medical redshirt and miss the rest of the season.

In 2005, Leath transferred to Sac State and was named an All-Big Sky Conference Honorable Mention after his first full season with the Hornets, even though he never started any of the 27 games he appeared in. Last season he started 13 of the team’s 29 games and led the team in 3-pointers with 72.

Jenkins said that this season Leath’s performance and ability to score will be important to the team’s success, and opposing teams have taken notice.

“People are really making a great effort to not let him get a lot of touches,” Jenkins said. “He’s just making the adjustment now to how other teams are guarding him.”

Leath said he worked out hard in the offseason to improve his game, and practices on his own regularly during the season.

“I tend to get in the gym after games,” Leath said. “You can’t really say you want something if you don’t work and try hard at it.”

“Loren does a lot of working out on his own in his spare time,” Leath’s father said via telephone.

He also took part in a summer workout program the last two years with his former basketball coach at Cleveland High, who now trains NBA players, and Young, who is now a rookie with the Washington Wizards. Current NBA players Adam Morrison, Devean George and Danny Granger have also been involved with the workout programs.

“That’s a level of competition I’m not going to see in college right now,” Leath said. “They can tell me about the mental side of the game and that helps me, too.”

Fernando Gallo can be reached at [email protected]