West Virginia transfer Jalen Bridges announces Big 12 destination

Former West Virginia forward Jalen Bridges has committed to Baylor, according to On3’s Joe Tipton. The Big 12 move comes after the 6-foot-7 wing player received widespread interest during his tenure in the transfer portal this offseason.

Before announcing his commitment to Baylor, Jalen Bridges scheduled visits to Alabama, Baylor and Michigan State, with his decision coming just hours after the conclusion of his trop to Waco, Texas. He also previously listed Ohio State as part of his final four schools under consideration.

A Fairmont, West Virginia native, Bridges played in 61 career games at West Virginia and made 52 starts, including all 33 last season. He averaged 8.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per game on 42.8 percent shooting from the field in 2021-22.

When playing against the Bears as a West Virginia player, Bridges averaged nine points across three games, all coming during the regular season.

#SicEm pic.twitter.com/LZoZS3YpIg

— jb (@jalenbridgess) April 20, 2022

Jalen Bridges joins Baylor as a former four-star recruit in the 2019 On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average. He also ranked No. 95 in the country and No. 1 in his home state of West Virginia.

According to On3’s Jamie Shaw, Bridges ranked as the No. 2 available forward in the transfer portal as of Apr. 15, when he last updated his list. He ranked behind only former Texas Tech forward Terrence Shannon, who has not made a decision on his next destination.

Transfer portal background information 

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.