West Virginia will be without two players that were considered part of the building blocks of the future when redshirt sophomore forward Jalen Bridges and redshirt freshman Isaiah Cottrell entered the transfer portal.

Bridges, a native of Fairmont, spent three years with the Mountaineers basketball program although he redshirted in his first season. This past year Bridges served as a starter averaging 8.5 points per contest.

He will have at least two years at his next location but could possibly stay for another year.

Cottrell was injured during his true freshman season with a torn Achilles but battled his way back into the floor. Cottrell averaged 4.2 points and 2.8 rebounds this past season starting the majority of the games.

WVSports.com has confirmed both.

This drops West Virginia down to eight scholarship players for the 2022 season with four of those being true freshmen and four more newcomers to the program. Both senior guards Sean McNeil and Kedrian Johnson could elect to return to bring that total to 10 but no decisions have been made.

----------

• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.

• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.

• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel

• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @JaredSerre

•Like us on Facebook