Satchel Pierce attended St. Vincent-St. Mary (Akron, OH) for the first three years of his high school career before transferring to Pennsylvania’s Kiski School, where he reclassified from the class of 2013 to the 2014. He has spent the past two years at Kiski, and in that time he has developed himself into a major Division 1 college prospect.

Pierce, a center, signed a letter of intent with then Buzz Williams-led Marquette in November of 2013, choosing the Warriors over offers from Miami and Pittsburgh. When Williams left Marquette for Virginia Tech, Pierce asked for and was granted a release from the letter of intent. Soon after (April 19, to be exact), Pierce and Aquinas (GA) star shooting guard Ahmed Hill committed to the Hokies while making official visits. Pierce has not yet received his official acceptance letter, but he plans to enroll at Tech in July.

Steve Scorpion arrived at Kiski as an assistant on the varsity basketball squad in the summer of 2012. (He recently was named the team’s head coach.) Scorpion’s arrival coincided with Pierce’s.

“When we got him, I saw him in the summer and I liked him,” Scorpion said, referring to Pierce. “He was big. I thought he had real good hands and a nice touch. I could tell his body wasn’t in great shape and he was still very, very raw. At the time I talked to some D1 coaches I’m friends with. I talked to a couple people from Ohio. They all liked him. They thought he could be good. He just hadn’t developed yet. It’s funny, I first saw him in late July (of 2012) and then when we started having open gyms in September. I had three or four different D1 coaches tell me then that he already looked so much better than he did in late July. He had a real good junior year for us. We lost in the state championship by two that year. He made very big strides his junior year. Everybody was excited about him this year. He really worked hard, worked on his conditioning, his skills… he had a real good summer. He really started working extra hard. The thing about him is he had never really been pushed and he didn’t really know how to work hard. We run the program here like a D1 program in terms of skill work and conditioning and lifting. He bought into it, progressed, and turned himself into a pretty good player. That being said, he still has a lot of work to do to continue to progress and be a dominant big man on the ACC level. He put himself in position to develop and be a centerpiece to an ACC program.”

...