"Just a wild thought": BYU signee Xavion Staton opens up on taking up basketball only to pay for college, to seriously considering an NBA career

No. 34 recruit and BYU signee Xavion Staton moved from Sierra Vista to Utah Prep to play the second half of the season. He was also featured in a series on the Instagram page of "Sports Stars Of Tomorrow."

Staton appeared in the video uploaded on Tuesday along with his mother, Codi, and Sierra Vista coach Joseph Bedowitz.

"Xavion Staton started basketball later than most top prospects, but he's quickly become one of the best big men in the 2025 class. He has signed with BYU. @xavi__wavi_ @utahprep @byumbb," the post's caption read.

In the video, Staton talked about plenty of topics including some complications with his birth, playing college basketball and more. The interviewer also asked him about his future in the NBA.

"Xavi is looking forward to his career at BYU, especially considering the loaded recruiting class that Cougars have built around him," the interviewer said. "He's trying not to look too far ahead, but he can't deny that he started to think about an NBA future, something that wasn't even on his radar a few years ago."

Staton claimed that while he was not thinking of a future in the league and got into the sport to pay for college, with the new facilities, going pro might just be possible.

"Basically, from freshman year, I wasn't really into the sport, but after that, I was like, OK, maybe I might be able to make something out of this," Staton said. "And so originally it was just to get basketball to pay for college.

"I have started to a little bit, and it's like, it's, it's wild, because I didn't really think of it much before, and so now that I'm really trying to, you know, put that on my radar, you know, at the gym, talking with my trainers, you know, it's very possible. So it's just a wild thought, but it's a great feeling."

In the last season for his former school, Sierra Vista, Xavion Staton averaged a double-double, scoring 10.9 points, grabbing 10.1 rebounds, dishing out 0.9 assists, 0.3 steals and 2.5 blocks per game.

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Xavion Staton's mother talks about his rare condition

The video published by Sports Stars Of Tomorrow also shows Staton's mother talking about his alopecia, a condition that causes patchy hair loss. However, Staton stopped his treatment in grade school due to the number of injections that were required.

However, his mother, Codi Staton, believed that Staton's confidence came from being himself:

"He came home one day, and we had been getting, you know, the treatment for that is just injections," she said. "He's getting scalp injections. And he was getting 60 to 80 scalp injections a month, and it was absolutely painful and insane just to keep his hair.

"And so one day, he's like, No, I'm done, like, I just want to shave it. This is who I am. This is what I look like. And I think that that's where a lot of his confidence stems from."

Xavion Staton is now ranked third in the center position and in Utah. He will join AJ Dybantsa and Chamberlain Burgress at BYU next season.