2024 PG CJ Brown covers South Florida offer, updates recruitment
The second live evaluation period of April began Friday evening and the Adidas 3SSB circuit teams are playing in front of college coaches in Bryan, Texas. Of interest to South Florida fans is the performance of 2024 guard CJ Brown who USF offered earlier this month.
Brown did not put up eye popping soring numbers during the first live evaluation period last weekend but he felt good about his performance.
“I feel like I played well,” Brown said. “I didn't really do a lot of scoring. But I felt like I did a good job contributing to the game in other ways.”
In addition to USF, Georgia, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Mississippi State, New Mexico State and Tulane have already offered Brown. Murray State, Furman and SMU are new to his recruitment but have not yet offered. Although the Bulls were Brown’s most recent offer he already had a good relationship with head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim.
“Me and him have really grown a bond over the years. I don't really look at him as a coach but more or less like a family member now. So, me and him have a really like grown together and really built a bond,” Brown said before talking about how Abdur-Rahim said he’d fit into his system. “He says he'll leave the ball in my hands and he trusts me to make the right play and do the right thing with the ball. So he really trusts me a lot in their system if I were to go there.”
Brown is anxious to visit USF.
"We haven't talked about it yet but I'm definitely going to try to go and visit there to see the campus."
Listing offers from three schools in his home state of Georgia, Brown told us that he has a special interest in one of them.
“Georgia Tech, because I love being in Georgia and I like engineering,” he said. “I love just watching different engineering videos and watching them put stuff together. And it just really, like, interests me.”
Although the Tech offer came when Josh Pastner was the head coach, Brown told us that there has been contact from the new staff.
“He follows me [on Twitter],” Brown said of the Yellow Jackets head coach Damon Stoudamire. “I know an assistant coach, Pershin Williams, who just went over there. He still keeps in contact with me.”
Before his travel team season began with Game Elite, Brown scored 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting to lead Kell High School to its first ever Georgia Class AAAAA state championship on Mar. 9. Since then Brown has been working on his game and sharpening his skills. He talked about what he wants Division I coaches to notice when they watch him play.
“My leadership skills. I try to lead the team in the right direction. How I can get everybody involved. If something's not working for me, or my shot is not falling, I can contribute to the game in a different way. Also, my intensity. I love intense games. I try to keep it that way for my team to stay riled up and continue to play hard.”
RUSS’ REACTION
Brown is a very athletic lead guard who can really get downhill and score at the rim. He’s a creative finisher, a solid but improving perimeter shooter. I really like his effort on defense and the toughness he plays with. His quickness and athleticism have caught the attention of a few high major coaches. As his overall game improves that attention could become pushes. With a strong performance this weekend Brown might increase his stock enough to debut in the Rivals150.
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