BYU basketball's endless search for a starting center could finally be reaching its end, with Chinese big Xu Xin emerging from the shadows. Earlier this week, BYU's head coach, Kevin Young, shared that his team had zeroed in on a potential starting center but was still working through the logistics of getting the nontraditional college athlete through the final logistical hurdles to be enrolled in Provo.
BYU is working through final steps to enroll 7’5” CBA center Xu Xin.
— Center Street Media (@CenterStMedia) June 18, 2026
Massive potential addition to the frontcourt👀👀
(🎥 @basi.pro) pic.twitter.com/bFKZ8X16l3
Now that the alluded athlete is revealed, Cougar Nation can breathe a little easier.
It's certainly taken long enough.
Xu (which is his surname, for those unfamiliar with Chinese naming conventions) stands at a towering 7 feet and 5 inches and is a brick wall on the defensive end at 247 pounds. An adult in the room at 22 years of age (born December 23, 2003), Xu was brought up in the Guangdong youth program to harness his basketball ability and prepare him for a career in professional basketball, which he began playing in 2021.
Through his first four seasons, Xu played only around 1,000 minutes and didn't see his role increase with Guangdong early. After Guangzhou acquired him on loan this season, however, he's broken out with 11 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks per night in 24.7 minutes.
That's some incredibly efficient production for a player of his size, and should have BYU fans excited when it comes to boosted rebounding and rim-protecting potential. The BYU program has been plagued with undersized bigs at the five since joining the Big 12 Conference (Xavion Staton, you were gone too soon) with 6'6" Fousseyni Traore and 6'9" Keba Keita. Both of those players were exceptional in their own right, but it's hard to deny that 7'5" puts the Cougars at a more obvious advantage now.
Much like Yao Ming, another sky-scraping Chinese center from whom lazy fans and reporters will draw far too many similarities, Xu Xin's parents were both basketball players. This explains his unbelievable size, in part, but we'll have to wait and see just how smoothly his game can translate to the college game.
But that's a concern for the future. For now, we await BYU basketball's official announcement and decompress some of the stress we've held through months of recruitment anticipation.
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