Baylor small forward Jalen Bridges announces decision to return to school for 2023-24

Baylor small forward Jalen Bridges had some big-time news to deliver to Bear basketball fans on Wednesday evening. The small forward officially announced that he will be returning to Baylor for the 2023-2024 campaign, per his Twitter page. Check out his official announcement below.

Let’s get it🐻🐻🐻 pic.twitter.com/BCmLYu2o45

— bizzle (@jbizzz11e) June 15, 2023

On May 31st, he officially withdrew his name from the 2023 NBA Draft. Bridges was contemplating possibly returning to Baylor, along with several offers from Australian NBL teams as part of their “Next Stars Program”, ESPN’s Jonathan Givony reported on Twitter. In the 2022-2023 college basketball season, Bridges poured in 10.3 points, grabbed 5.6 rebounds, and dished out 1.0 assists per game for the Bears.

He played his first two seasons of college basketball with the West Virginia Mountaineers, before joining on with the Baylor Bears for this year. In the 2021-2022 season, Bridges averaged 8.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per game for the Mountaineers. As a freshman, he had his best three-point shooting season, averaging 40.9 percent from beyond-the-arc. He’s averaged 34.4 percent from three-point range for his career.

Coming out of Fairmont High School in Fairmont, West Virgnia, Bridges was rated as a four-star prospect and the No. 112 overall prospect in the country, according to the On3 Industry Rankings for the 2019 cycle.

Bridges makes his decision, more on the 2023 NBA Draft

The 2023 NBA Draft is set to take place on Thursday, June 22, 2023, in Brooklyn at Barclays Center. Round 1 of the draft will be announced by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, while Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum is expected to handle the second round of picks.

To be eligible for the NBA Draft, players must be at least 19 years in age during the calendar year that the draft is held and at least one NBA season from their high school graduation date, or the date that would have been if they are not graduated. It is not required that player spend that one year playing college basketball, though. Players can play in either college, abroad, or the G League Ignite if they choose so.

While this is a significant change from what the rules once were, players are eligible to enter their names into the NBA Draft pool and explore their options by hiring an agent to go through the process, while still keeping their college eligibility. The deadline to make that move is on April 23 beginning at 11:59 p.m. ET. Players have until June 12 at 5 p.m. ET to withdraw their name from the pool and return to college.

The NBA Draft Lottery was held on May 16, which was also the start of the NBA Conference Finals.