Finding a new home

If Makhai Valentine had any doubts that the college he visited last week was interested in him, they were erased when the basketball coaching staff took him to dinner.

“They took me to a couple nice restaurants,” Valentine said. “We went to Eddie V’s [seafood restaurant]. That’s how I knew they were offering. You spend a nice couple of thousands on these meals.”

While his steak dinner was one of the highlights of Valentine’s visit to George Mason, it certainly wasn’t the most memorable.

That’s because before he left campus, the former Steel Valley star decided to transfer there.

Valentine, a 6-foot-3 guard, chose George Mason over a list of schools that included Boise State, North Texas, Denver and Monmouth.

“I knew it when they reached out to me. I was like, ‘I’m going there.’ I just knew that,” said Valentine, a Post-Gazette Fabulous 5 pick as a senior at Steel Valley in 2023 when he pumped in a WPIAL-leading 36.2 points per game.

George Mason, located in Fairfax, Va., will be the third college stop for Valentine, who also took a prep year at Link Academy in Missouri. He spent his freshman season at Missouri State, where he was coached by former NBA player Cuonzo Martin, before transferring to Northern Illinois, where he started 29 games and averaged 13.3 points and 5.3 rebounds per game last season.

Despite a strong sophomore season at Northern Illinois, Valentine decided to leave the school after the Huskies parted ways with head coach Rashon Burno.

Upon hitting the transfer portal, Valentine said a long list of programs reached out to him, but his only visit was to George Mason, which he visited with his mom last Thursday and Friday. The Patriots, who compete in the Atlantic-10, went 23-10 and reached the NIT this past season.

“[Coach Tony Skinn] said they’re going to give me the opportunity to play a lot of minutes. When he watched my film, he said I made sense to his program and I fit his play style,” Valentine said. “He said he loves the fact that I can rebound the ball well and I can really shoot it. That’s what he liked the most.”

Valentine shot 36% from behind the arc last season, and scored season highs of 27 points against Kent State and Massachusetts.

A prolific shooter at Steel Valley, Valentine knocked down 135 3-pointers his senior season, an average of 5.6 per game. He poured in 63 points in one game when he connected on 12 3-pointers, one short of the WPIAL record. In addition to his huge point average, Valentine added 10.4 rebounds and 6.3 assists a game.

Valentine said there is a lot he likes about George Mason, not just the coaching staff’s choice of restaurants.

“The area is beautiful. The campus is awesome. It’s amazing,” he said. “It’s very high level. Being in the Atlantic-10, they kind of treat those schools just like the Power Five level. So they have everything that the Power Five’s have. They have great facilities. They have great people. They have great training staffs. Great academic people. Everybody there, you could really tell they enjoy being there.”

Portal news

Two of the top players in the transfer portal with WPIAL ties recently picked new schools.

• Mt. Lebanon’s Ashleigh Connor, the Post-Gazette’s Player of the Year in 2022, committed to Iowa State. A 5-11 guard, Connor played her first season at Saint Louis before spending two seasons at La Salle, where she averaged 15.8 points and 5.5 rebounds last season.

• Pittsburgh native Amari Evans committed to Texas. A 6-5 guard, Evans played his freshman season at Tennessee, averaging 4.1 points and 3.2 rebounds while playing in 35 games for a team that advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. Evans helped Bishop Canevin claim WPIAL and PIAA Class 1A titles his freshman season of high school before finishing his career at Our Savior New Lutheran (N.Y.) and Overtime Elite (Ga.).

Vikings star commits

One of the WPIAL’s best basketball players announced his college choice last week, as Central Catholic senior Enzo Khalil committed to Division II power West Liberty.

A 6-2 guard, Khalil averaged 16.7 points per game and earned all-section honors for the second year in a row last season while helping Central Catholic (24-4) reach the WPIAL Class 6A semifinals and PIAA quarterfinals.

“He’ll go down as one of the best players to play at Central Catholic,” Vikings coach Brian Urso said after Khalil scored his 1,000th career point in a win against rival Allderdice in the first round of the PIAA playoffs.

West Liberty has won 20 or more games for 21 consecutive seasons (excluding the 2020-21 COVID year) and reached the NCAA Division II championship game in 2023.

First offer

Pine-Richland basketball standout Mia LeDonne picked up her first Division I offer last week.

LeDonne, a 5-9 junior guard-forward, was offered by Bradley of the Missouri Valley Conference.

LeDonne is coming off an excellent junior season which saw her bounce back from a knee injury that forced her to miss her entire sophomore season. She averaged 13.3 points per game on her way to all-section honors, and helped Pine-Richland reach the WPIAL Class 6A quarterfinals.