Rector's recruiting rising at St. Ray's

Shane Rector is back to his old self.

The St. Raymond point guard, slowed by an ankle injury, early in the season had 20 points in a 69-62 win against All Hallows in CHSAA Class AA boys basketball Tuesday in The Bronx and is averaging 20 points per game over the last few weeks for the Ravens.

“He’s healthy now,” St. Ray’s coach Oliver Antigua said. “He’s got his confidence back. He’s got his explosiveness. He’s really scoring the ball.”

Antigua isn’t the only one noticing, either. Last week, coaches from Notre Dame and Pittsburgh came to see Rector play against Mount St. Michael. Stanford has also been in contact to go along with heavy interest from Cincinnati, Fairfield and Columbia. Fordham, Dayton, UMass, Marist and Manhattan are also in the mix.

Denis Gostev

St. Raymond's Shane Rector has picked up interest from Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Stanford recently.

“The ankle was really messing me up,” Rector said. “Now I’m almost 100 percent and it’s showing.”

The electric 6-foot-1 junior was a shell of his normal self when his ankle was hurting. Now, he’s running the team with aplomb and has also become a third scoring option behind Temple-bound swingman Daniel Dingle and Iowa State-bound wing Kerwin Okoro.

“He’s attacking the basket,” Antigua said of Rector. “Before he wasn’t a threat to blow by guys. He can get by you now. It’s allowed for him to pull up and get off his jump shots. He’s just more versatile.”

That also extends to the classroom. Rector is a 90 student and has a partial academic scholarship at St. Ray’s. There’s no wonder why elite academic schools such as Columbia, Stanford and Notre Dame have inquired.

Rector said he has no timetable for a college decision, but academics will definitely play a factor. He has not yet decided where he’ll play AAU in the spring and summer, because his Gauchos program lost its Nike sponsorship.

Rector is taking a wait-and-see approach to his recruiting and lauded Antigua for putting together a national-level schedule for St. Ray’s, which featured trips to the City of Palms Classic in Fort Myers, Fla., and the HighSchoolOT.com Holiday Invitational in Raleigh, N.C., where the Ravens played in front of a plethora of college coaches.

“It’s not possible without him,” Rector said of his coach. “He’s put us in a great position.”

Antigua said college coaches have fallen in love with Rector’s calm demeanor under pressure while running the team. He has the demeanor of a high-major point guard, the coach said. And he’s a vital piece to St. Ray’s trying to get over the CHSAA Class AA semifinals hump and winning a city championship.

“He has the talent,” Antigua said. “He can definitely score the ball. I think he was trying to find his way around the team with all these seniors.”

Now that he has found his way, college coaches are starting to find him.

mraimondi@nypost.com