Life as a Mountaineer – Jalen Bridges

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University sophomore forward Jalen Bridges suggests he recognized he needed to strictly be a basketball player by the time he attained fifth grade.
 
Football, baseball and the other people sports activities ended up out immediately after that.
 
“Basketball was what I wished to do when I moved from Bridgeport to Fairmont likely into my fifth grade calendar year because that is when middle school started,” he suggests. “I type of just dropped every single other sport and I just explained to my dad (Cory) I want to be a basketball participant when I improve up. 
 
“He explained to me I was heading to have to function tough and that is what we did,” Bridges adds.
 
Even although Jalen grew up appropriate down the street from West Virginia College, he states he wasn’t actually all that caught up in getting to be a Mountaineer when he was a star player at Fairmont Senior.
 
He states he wanted to definitely experience the WVU campus for himself in man or woman to absolutely respect it.
 
“If I have to preserve it entirely straightforward it was not right up until I took my formal pay a visit to listed here (that he wished to participate in for West Virginia) due to the fact I normally imagined I needed to get absent from every little thing and get absent from every distraction I experienced in my life and just participate in someplace else in a unique condition,” he suggests. “But when I took my official pay a visit to and I seemed in the mirror and I observed that (Mountaineer) jersey on it just felt appropriate. I received chills all above my human body and it was like, ‘Yeah, this is where I want to be at.'”
 
Bridges states there are a lot of individual gains to taking part in for his dwelling point out college.
 
“My grandparents are starting to get on the aged aspect and having a tiny bit of overall health challenges so they wouldn’t truly be equipped to journey if I went wherever else,” he states. “Then my mother and dad, naturally, aunts and uncles … cousins, they all get to be a element of this. It truly means the globe to me and not just Fairmont but the entire point out, I’m grateful for their assistance.”
 
Bridges thinks he is even now evolving as a higher education participant. As a freshman, he was mainly a wing shooter and now this 12 months he’s showcasing more of his overall activity. 
 
He’s around doubled his scoring common from 5.9 points previous yr to 9.2 points heading into Saturday night’s match in opposition to Kansas. He is also grabbing much more rebounds, blocking much more shots and producing extra steals while shooting an impressive 85{6f90f2fe98827f97fd05e0011472e53c8890931f9d0d5714295052b72b9b5161} from the totally free toss line.
 
“I felt like past yr I was nothing at all but a 3-level shooter. Which is the only point I was out there performing and now this year I am much more of a focal place. I can provide the ball up. I can initiate the offense at times and I can even now shoot the 3 like I have generally completed and get it to the basket and build for myself and my teammates. 
 
“I’m getting minor methods and bearing the fruits from it,” he states.
 
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This week’s Daily life as a Mountaineer was produced by Megan Crain and is introduced by Panhandle Cleaning & Restoration each week during the period.