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Welcome to this week’s Tigers Basketball Insider. Below you’ll find the latest news and analysis from The Daily Memphian’s Parth Upadhyaya, John Martin and Tim Buckley.
After Curtis Givens III committed to LSU over his hometown Memphis Tigers last weekend in a surprising move, fans were quick to chalk up coach Penny Hardaway’s recruiting miss as a non-subject.
Givens is a four-star point guard who’s ranked just 59th in the 2024 class, according to 247Sports’ composite rankings. In today’s era of college basketball — where experience outweighs even top-100 talent — Givens wouldn’t have been an immediate needle-mover for Memphis anyway.
Hardaway is almost certainly better off snagging a point guard out of the transfer portal next offseason instead of bringing in a player who’s not even a consensus top-25 prospect.
But that doesn’t mean traditional high school recruiting should be neglected entirely. Finding young players who are willing to be developed for two or more years can help sustain a program’s culture and foundation. It’s why coaches around the country — Hardaway included — are aiming to find the right balance between being aggressive in the transfer portal versus attacking the high school ranks.
Last offseason, the Tigers didn’t sign a single U.S. player in the Class of 2022. (Ian Granja was brought in from Spain, though.) And this offseason, the program added just three freshmen while snagging eight scholarship players out of the portal.
“I think for us, moving forward, it’s always gonna be portal heavy,” Hardaway told The Daily Memphian at Monday’s AAC Media Day. “(But) I think that you still have to get your young guys, for sure, because you wanna be able to have a base of guys growing together. … You don’t wanna start over every year — that’s why you gotta get some young guys to kinda build your roster up.”
Heading into his sixth year as the Tigers’ coach, Hardaway realizes the importance of landing at least a couple talented freshmen in this current recruiting cycle. There are only two players currently on the team’s roster that were a part of the program last season — Jayden Hardaway and Malcolm Dandridge — and both will have exhausted their eligibility at the end of this season.
For Hardaway to maintain the culture he’s built so far in his time as head coach, he’ll have to find a way to have some sort of roster continuity on an annual basis.
It’s the reason why he made Givens a priority — and why he’s doing the same with 2024 four-star wing Billy Richmond (ranked No. 31 overall, according to 247Sports’ composite rankings). Both are talented enough to be valuable team members while not being sure-fire one-and-done prospects who will only be around for one season — they’re also Memphis natives who understand what it means to be a Tiger.
So even though it didn’t work out with Givens, don’t expect Hardaway to throw in the towel when it comes to grabbing players out of the high school ranks.
“The care factor, the guys from Memphis, the guys that have been here the longest, it starts over after this year,” Hardaway said. “And I’m looking forward to that, as well. Because sometimes starting over isn’t bad with a new group.”
More from your Insider:
In the wake of Derrick Rose joining the Grizzlies, Kentucky’s coach looks back at his time in Memphis.
Many expected the 6-foot-2 former Memphis University School star, who’s finishing his high school career in Florida, to commit to Memphis.
Host Greg Gaston is joined by Parth Upadhyaya and Frank Bonner II to talk Tigers football and basketball on this week’s episode of The Daily Memphian Tigers Podcast.
It’s all about the city for Jahvon Quinerly, Madison Griggs and Memphis Tigers basketball at Student Madness.
Memphis basketball’s first-ever student-only season tip-off event allowed the university’s student body to familiarize itself with players on both the men’s and women’s teams.
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