Introducing 2014 Prospect Rashad Vaughn

One of the hottest recruits on the 2014 recruiting circuit is Rashad Vaughn.  Not only because he is receiving a lot of hype and attention from the majoring recruiting services, but also because the elite basketball programs have been following him very closely.  He appears to have some interest in Michigan at this point and potentially could be an elite recruit in Michigan's 2014 recruiting class.  John Beilein is already going after some elite recruits like Kevon Looney and has already offered three players in the 2014 recruiting class;  Devin Booker, Keita Bates-Diop, and Trevon Bluiett, but there's little doubt that more offers will be released in the future and Vaughn seems to be a likely candidate.


ESPN has identified Vaughn as someone with good ball handling skills and a player with the ability to get his way to the rim in transition.  He's extremely talented and already appears to have solid body size and weight.  All the major recruiting services that have listed a weight have him weighing at least 180 lbs.  For a height around 6'5" and after just finishing his sophomore year, that's pretty decent size.  Odds are that he might grow a bit more into his size and become even more deadly.  Obviously, this is pure speculation, but a lot of recruits do grow a little bit in their later high school years and definitely in terms of their weight.  If either of these things happen even slightly, he has some pretty solid size for college basketball.
Here are the basic listings for Vaughn:

	ESPN	Rivals	Scout	247Sports
Height	6’6”	6’4”	6’5”	6’5”
Weight	200 lbs	N/A	180 lbs	190 lbs
Position	SG	SG	SG	SF
Rating	4*	4*	5*	NR
Position Rank	#12	NR	#2	NR
National Rank	#55	#20	#17	NR

Vaughn is one of those nice recruits to evaluate because most of the recruiting services have his details listed pretty similarly.  His height and weight on all the major recruiting services are just about the same and 247 is the only site that seems to think he's anything other than a shooting guard.  To me, he's a shooting guard all the way.  Along with this, all of the sites appear to think that he's an elite 4* or 5* recruit.  ESPN has his national ranking lower than Rivals and Scout, but they aren't that far off.  As Rivals and Scout continue to update and refine their rankings, I would be willing to bet that he winds up closer to that ESPN national ranking than the ones listed by Rivals and Scout, but I'm not sure if he will drop all the way to #55 in the country.  


To complement these great rankings, Vaughn has received tremendous attention from elite schools all over the country including Baylor, Kansas, Minnesota, and Texas.  Each of these schools has already offered him a scholarship.  There's no doubt that a recruit has to be pretty talented to get attention and and offers from these types of basketball programs.  The one thing to note is that Vaughn is from Minnesota, which would lead one to believe that the Golden Gophers have at least a slight advantage over everyone else, but this doesn't seem to be the case right now.


Michigan may not have offered him yet, but it seems to be an uphill battle if they want to get Vaughn's services in 2014.  Baylor has been recruiting him very hard so far and I would not be surprised if he ended up there.  Although I think Michigan has a chance with Vaughn, he is admittedly, not Michigan's first priority. Michigan has been recruiting shooting guards Devin Booker and Bryant McIntosh and I think those are the targets that are most likely to end up as Wolverines in 2014. 


Vaughn is extremely talented and would be a great addition to Michigan's basketball team, but this is a recruit that I don't think Michigan will deeply pursue unless Booker decides to go somewhere else.  Since I really think Michigan is leading for Booker's services and will eventually get a commitment from him, the Michigan and Vaughn pairing probably won't happen, especially because of his interest in some of the Big 12 schools like Baylor.  Either way, he's a player to keep an eye on because he could end up playing in the Big Ten and possibly even Michigan.

Here's his highlight video: