Jalen Bridges Set to Make Return to WVU

The West Virginia kid makes his way back to Morgantown for a key game in Big 12 play.

Fairmont, West Virginia native Jalen Bridges is set to make his return to the WVU Coliseum Wednesday night when he and the Baylor Bears square off against the Mountaineers in a battle of teams that have an 0-3 record to begin Big 12 play.

Bridges spent the first two years of his career at West Virginia, where he 7.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game. In his first 15 games with the Bears, Bridges is hitting roughly the same marks with 8.9 points and 4.8 boards per game. However, his three-point shooting has taken a major dip, shooting at just a 22% clip. In his two years at WVU, he shot 40% and 32% from deep.

Over the summer, Bridges did an interview with the Final Fourcast describing why he wanted out of West Virginia and why he chose Baylor.

"I'd rather be taught than just yelled at. I can take yelling if there's teaching too and not saying there was no teaching, it was just they'd rather yell at you and put on the treadmill rather than show you what to do and how to fix it and not make that same mistake again. It's like a punishment over trying to get better. I feel like I regressed as a player honestly. That was a bad representation of my game and I'm just trying to rebrand myself.

"When you look at it from a basketball perspective and when you look at what Scott Drew has done with people like me, he's consistently developed them and made them into pros. I feel like I was just mentally drained, I felt like I needed to get out of there. It's a completely different system, a completely different offense. I've never been out of West Virginia in my entire life and I needed a break, I need something a little different. It was really between Alabama and Baylor. I feel like if I would've went to Bama, I would have had too much fun. I want to be somewhere where I can lock in and really just work on my game and try to get better."

WVU head coach Bob Huggins was asked during his press conference on Tuesday if he's kept up with how Jalen has done this season and talked about his decision to move on from WVU.

"Honestly, I haven't paid all that much attention. Obviously, I've watched some here of late because we're playing them but I haven't really paid any attention. Everybody's got to do what they got to do. I'm past the point in time in my life where I care. I'm past the point in time in my life where I worry about it. I mean, why would I worry about it? I've got enough on my hands here to try to get these guys to win some games. I ain't worried about somebody else."

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