Jay Wright shares how he almost did not recruit eventual Villanova great

When you think of superstars in college basketball, you think of multiple teams lined up in recruiting for a ready-made player.

For Mikal Bridges, this was not the case.

While there were many teams after the 6-foot-6 product out of Malvern, PA, Villanova was almost not one of them. Jay Wright joined Mike Francesa for an interview last week and he discussed how he was not impressed with Bridges early on.

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“He was 6’6″, 6’7″ and was well-known because of his length and his potential,” Wright said. “We were not really recruiting him because he just was really thin and we just thought physically it was going to take him some time.”

During his senior year at Great Valley High School, Bridges had many offers from the likes of Penn State, Florida, Virginia Tech, and more. He was ranked as the No. 4 player in Pennsylvania, but his lanky stature made Villanova think hard about their offer.

After watching Bridges play multiple times and seeing that he had a great feel for the game, the Wildcats went in.

“He wasn’t really overly impressive except for the fact he had a great high school coach who taught him how to play without the basketball,” Weight said. “He was the star, but he moved without the ball, used screens, he cut… And we thought he really knows how to play.”

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Villanova was loaded in Bridges’ first year and he decided to redshirt. This is when he worked hard to get stronger.

“He played in his first year with Arcidiacono, Hart, Kris Jenkins, Jalen Brunson,” Wright said. “We didn’t need to go to him. With his length, he got stronger. He worked with our strength coach. He worked extremely hard. His redshirt year was hell. He would practice with us. He would lift five times a week. Everybody else would lift three times a week. We used to take walk ons and just make him play one-on-one day of the game and let the walk-on just foul the hell out of him.”

Bridges eventually built himself into one of the top defenders in the…

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Publish date : 2026-06-25 16:03:00

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