Top 100-recruit Curtis Givens III commits to Matt McMahon, LSU men's basketball over Memphis
As LSU’s football team grabbed a much-needed win on the road Saturday against No. 22 Missouri, the Tigers’ men’s basketball program got a victory of its own.
Point guard Curtis Givens III, a top-100 prospect in the 2024 recruiting class, committed to LSU on Saturday, announcing his decision at a barbecue restaurant in East Memphis, Tennessee and in a subsequent video he posted to Instagram.
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Givens is rated as a four-star prospect and the No. 59 recruit nationally by 247Sports’ Composite rankings, which have him as the country’s No. 5 point guard.
The 6-2, 170-pound Givens committed to LSU over Memphis, his hometown school, and Texas. Indiana and Georgia Tech were also considered to be in the running for Givens’ pledge.
He becomes the second top-100 recruit in the 2024 class for coach Matt McMahon and the Tigers, joining 6-10 forward Robert Miller, the No. 56 recruit nationally in 247’s Composite rankings who committed to McMahon on Sept. 22. With Givens now aboard, LSU’s 2024 class is ranked 17th nationally by 247Sports Composite.
The Tigers are coming off a 2022-23 season in which they finished 14-19 overall and 2-16 in SEC play, their worst records since the 2016-17 season. It came after an eventful offseason in which McMahon had no returning scholarship players just 11 days into his tenure after taking over for the fired Will Wade.
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Curtis Givens III high school and AAU statistics
Born and raised in Memphis, Givens played at Memphis University School before transferring in 2022 to Montverde Academy in Florida, which has produced future NBA standouts such as Joel Embiid, RJ Barrett, D’Angelo Russell, Ben Simmons and Scottie Barnes over the past decade.
On a star-studded Montverde team last season that features four of 247’s top 15 players in the 2024 class – including No. 1 overall recruit Cooper Flagg — Givens averaged four points and 2.2 assists per game. On the Nike EYBL circuit last summer, Givens had a more pronounced role, averaging 14.8 points, 3.8 assists and 2.9 rebounds in 24 games.
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Curtis Givens III: What recruiting analysts say
Travis Branham, a recruiting analyst for 247Sports, believes LSU is getting a complete guard in Givens.
"He has the feel and IQ to facilitate and initiate offense but also has the confidence, skill set and aggressiveness to go out and score the basketball," Branham told The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. "He makes shots from 3, creates out of ball screens and is a good on-ball defender."
Rob Cassidy, a recruiting analyst for Rivals, sees Givens as a sometimes mercurial prosect, a player with undeniable strengths — his scoring ability, smart decision-making with the ball and finishing through contact — but sometimes questionable shot selection.
“You sit down and go, ‘Are we gonna get the guy that goes for 25 and 8, or the guy that shoots 20 percent?” Cassidy said to The Commercial Appeal. “You just don’t know. Now, that’s not really a Curtis Givens thing. It’s more of a high school basketball thing. The highs are high and the lows, you just shake your head."
Both analysts project Givens as a college-ready player, with Branham noting that it “would not be a surprise to see Givens start from Day 1.”
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Top 100-recruit Curtis Givens III commits to LSU men's basketball
