On Tuesday, Rice transfer forward Mylyjael Poteat committed to Virginia Tech over Pittsburgh, UMass, and others.
“I look at the opportunity there, to make an impact on a program that has that winning culture established,” Poteat told The Portal Report. “The opportunity to play for ACC Coach of the Year in Mike Young is a really big deal and is something you don’t want to look over. And especially to already have a little bit of a relationship established. He had recruited me at Wofford, so I had a little bit of familiarity with him and how he plays and who he is. It’s a community there in Blacksburg. It’s a really awesome community, just going around campus you can feel the support that the community gives to Virginia Tech athletics. You can feel how much they really care about sports, especially on the basketball side. I definitely wanted to be a part of that kind of culture, that kind of community.”
“I definitely put myself in a position where I felt like I had three really good options,” Poteat added. “I decided to visit the schools that I did because I felt that I could be successful there. I connected with the staffs and I did like all those options, but at the end of the day, I felt like Virginia Tech would be the best option for me.”
Poteat is a 6-foot-9, 260-pound forward from North Carolina, who played in all 33 games in his freshman season at Rice. He averaged 7.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game.
“I feel like I fit their style of play to a T,” he said. “The way they use their bigs, they run a lot of stuff that gives them the ability to score with their back to the basket, to score face u1p, be decision makers. As a fan of the ACC, being from North Carolina, I monitor a lot of the ACC teams. The development I’ve seen with their bigs — I watched a lot of Aluma this year, and the development he made from Wofford, going to these years at Virginia Tech — it’s amazing. He expanded his game in a lot of ways, and I hopefully can see myself coming in there and trying to improve my game in a similar way. They have a blueprint set up for guys coming from a mid-major school, similar to myself, and how they can develop that player and how they can help them be successful.”
Poteat visited Pittsburgh last week and Virginia Tech over the weekend, and chose the Hokies early in the week after his trip to Blacksburg.