UCLA Basketball Recruiting: SG Xavier Rathan-Mayes

We continue our long look at the prospective 2013 UCLA basketball recruiting class by checking out 4-star 2-guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes out of Huntington, WV, who has both shown (medium) interest in, and has an offer from, UCLA.

He’s only 6’3” and weighs 190 pounds, which is kind of undersized for your average 2-guard, but that doesn’t seem to impede his ability. Let’s break down the highlight tape:

The thing you can take away from this is that he’s versatile. There’s a good mix of ball-handling to create his own shots by penetrating, sizing up for a shot from long-range, and passing to a streaking man down low. His court vision seems pretty solid and he has it in him to attack the basket with vengeance, based on this mix-tape.

Do the scouting reports agree with this assessment? There isn’t much on him, but it’s a mixed bag. While the reports love his eclecticism and his ability to create shots, they knock him (hard, mind you) for lacking in athleticism and not having grown into his body yet. They also knock him on his ability to stay on the court as a point guard, a position that’s better tailored to his size. He is, however, a solid perimeter scorer and has a sweet shot, meaning it’s likely that he’s better off as a 2-guard anyway.

Xavier Rathan-Mayes seems to fly under the radar here, since there doesn’t seem to be a ton on him in terms of scouting reports (despite being a consensus 4-star recruit). That said, he seems to have the potential to make an impact pretty immediately to whichever school he decides to attend. Dude’ll be a legit addition to UCLA’s stockpile of guards.

GO BRUINS!!!