By: Chris Long and Joel Bryant

Rising Junior Jarren McAllister has committed to Virginia Tech. The announcement was made public on the Heritage Basketball Twitter account this afternoon. McAllister becomes the first of the class of 2018 to commit to Virginia Tech where he has had an offer since the summer.

The news comes after McAllister’s great sophomore season in which he scored 390 points for a 13.4 PPG average. He also pulled in 5.1 RPG and had 3.4 APG. After starting on varsity in his first two years as a high school student, McAllister has tallied 604 career points. That’s good enough for second in school history, behind his teammate Jayden Gardner.

“Today means a lot to me,” said McAllister. “I’m going to college for free. That was the main goal from day one and to have my dreams come true is truly a blessing.”

About Virginia Tech McAllister said, “I can honestly say I have found a great organization that will benefit me for my four years there and the years after that. After meeting with all the staff members and coach Buzz {Williams} I feel like Virginia Tech is the place I want to be. Everyone just made me feel welcome and it felt like I was with family.”

While McAllister still has two years left at Heritage, his future coach coach Buzz Williams shared his thoughts on Twitter about McAllister joining the Hokie family:

McAllister also had quite a few people he wanted to thank. “I just want to thank God most of all for blessing me with the opportunity to be the person I am today, I want to thank my parents  and family members for raising me the right way and to stay humble and hungry for success and my high school coach Tilden Brill for working with me and my AAU coach Dwayne West for giving me the chance to show my talent and working with me. I could go all day naming people I’d like to thank really but these few are the ones that really helped me.”

Virginia Tech finished 7th in the ACC this past season, a huge improvement from 15th (last place) in the season prior. The Hokies hope that McAllister can help boost them even higher in the ACC once he arrives in the fall of 2018.

Check out Jarren’s highlights from this past season: