MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Former Fairmont Senior standout Jalen Bridges will take a redshirt this season, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins confirmed Tuesday, meaning the 6-foot-7 forward will practice with the Mountaineers, but not play until the 2020-21 season.
“He wanted to redshirt,” Huggins said. “That was the plan that (his family) had mapped out. I was fine with it. I think it’s a great idea.”
Bridges was the state’s 2019 Bill Evans Award winner as a senior as the top boys’ basketball player, after averaging 21.6 points and 6.7 rebounds per game.
The Polar Bears advanced to the Class AA state title game four years in a row with Bridges and won the championship in 2016 and 2017.
He was set to attend a prep school in Pennsylvania and remain in the class of 2020, but opted to enroll with the Mountaineers in August instead. Before reclassifying, Bridges had been ranked a 4-star prospect and No. 72 overall in the class of 2020 by ESPN.
“You’ve got to like his length, and at 6-foot-7 and long, his ability to play on the perimeter,” Huggins said. “He gets better and better everyday as he gets more comfortable. I think he’s going to be a really good player.”
Captain Huggins
During his pre-season press conference, Huggins began speaking about the WVU guards’ inability to pass the ball at the right times, which led him to think he must have been a much better player in his prime.
“I told our guards, ‘The good thing when I watch them is that I realize what a hell of a player I was.’ I knew when a guy gets open, you pass to them. You don’t wait for him to get covered,” Huggins said.
Which prompted the question whether or not a in-his-prime Huggins would start at WVU today?
“Start?” Huggins asked before breaking out a smile. “I’d be the captain.”
No backup?
Sophomore forward Emmitt Matthews Jr. was one of the team’s standouts during its summer exhibition tour of Spain, averaging 13 points in three games.
With a roster loaded with seven guards and four power forwards, Matthews could be pretty lonely as the team’s only true small forward.
His backup: “Emmitt can’t get tired,” Huggins joked.
In all seriousness, Huggins later said senior guard Jermaine Haley could move to that position in certain situations.
“It may be Jermaine’s best position,” Huggins said, who also noted that the Mountaineers may look to play three guards while having both power forwards Derek Culver and Oscar Tshiebwe playing down low.
Intelligent speaking
Huggins decided to steer clear of the NCAA charging the University of Kansas with lack of institutional control and Jayhawks’ basketball coach Bill Self with head coach responsibility violations.
The West Virginia coach said he saw the headlines, but didn’t read the stories in detail.
“I don’t know enough about it to say anything intelligent,” Huggins said. “I really pride myself on sounding intelligent, as you know. “
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