The high school minicamp that USA Basketball hosts over Final Four weekend is one of the nicest portions of the event. This year’s camp was no different, with a large number of the best players from the classes of 2025, 2026, and 2027 traveling to the desert to participate. We wanted to examine some of the standouts class by class after spending a few days to process what we could observe.
We will start with the class where big guy Xavion Staton proved that his midwinter rankings rise was no accident, and he tops the 2025 group that caught on because of the depth of quality.
Xavion Staton truly grabbed our notice during USA Basketball’s camp in Colorado Springs last autumn. Although we had previously seen the big man from Las Vegas, Nevada, Sierra Vista, who could block shots, in the spring of 2023, his performance at USAB, along with subsequent strong performances at the Border League and the Tarkanian Classic during the high school season, helped propel him into the national spotlight and into the 2025 Top-150 with great force. He finished the most recent update to the 247Sports rankings at No. 21 overall.
Without a doubt, Staton still needs to grow a lot of strength and is still a young offensive player, but he demonstrated in Phoenix that his quick ascension was warranted.
Staton wasn’t the only big man in attendance to enjoy a successful weekend; other players that grabbed notice were four-star prospects Chris Cenac, John Clark, Niko Bundalo, Nigel Walls, and Jaden Toombs. It was encouraging to watch Cenac, a big man with live body and some developing perimeter skills, try more to play in the lane, around the basket, and with his talents defensively. Clark is a lean post with great running ability. He still needs to work on his strength and skill set, but his quickness, motor, and capacity to get off the ground more quickly than his opponents really stood out.
