Jalen Gabbidon

Photo by: Joel Broida

Position:
Guard
Height:
6-5
Weight:
195
Class:
Graduate Student
Hometown:
Harrisburg, Pa.
High School:
Glenelg Country School/Yale
Major:
Engineering Management

2022-23 (Graduate): Averaged 4.6 points and 2.0 rebounds in 27 games during his lone season at Colorado. Shot just under 40 percent from the field and made 71 percent from the free throw line. Made seven starts, the first of those in Colorado's memorable win over No. 11 ranked Tennessee (11/13) where he pitched in eight points, three rebounds and two steals. Had three games scoring in double-digits. The first was a season-high 12 points in his Colorado debut against UC Riverside (11/7). He then had 11 points and a season-high four steals at Grambling State (11/11). His final double-digit effort came against No. 4/3 UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals (3/9) where he matched his season-best 12 points while shooting a perfect 5 for 5 from the field; two of those coming from 3-point range. He was named the team's Best Defender and Most Inspirational at the annual awards banquet.

2017-22 (Yale): Played in 78 games in three seasons, over five years, for Yale during his undergraduate career. A two-year team captain for the Bulldogs, he averaged 7.0 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.2 steals while shooting 45 percent from the field and 77 percent from the line. Helped Yale to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances (2019, ’22) and two Ivy League regular season and tournament titles. Earned All-Ivy Second Team honors as a senior, averaging 11.3 points and 3.6 rebounds per game. He ranked third in the Ivy League in free throw percentage (.806), fifth in steals (1.4 spg) and seventh in field goal percentage (.477). Scored a career-high 32 points against Penn (2/18) and logged a double-double against Seton Hall (11/14) with 14 points and a career-high 11 rebounds. Named the 2019-20 Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year as a junior, averaging 5.9 points and 3.4 rebounds per game. Tied for fourth in the Ivy League in steals with 40. Played in 17 games as a sophomore in 2018-19. Missed his freshman season of 2017-18 with an injury. Yale, along with the rest of the Ivy League, did not compete in 2020-21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

High School: A first team all-county selection as a senior at Glenelg Country School in Maryland. Spent his first three years of high school at Harrisburg Academy where he was leading scorer in the state of Pennsylvania as a junior. A first team all-state selection as a junior season, he finished his career with 2,053 points, 228 three-pointers, 666 rebounds, 249 steals and 366 assists/ Scored 60 points in a game in his junior season at Harrisburg. Helped lead Glenelg to the MIAA A Division quarterfinals as a senior. Played AAU for York Ballers.

Academics: Pursuing a master’s degree in Engineering Management at Colorado. Earned his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Yale in 2022. A National Merit Commended Scholar and was the recipient of Yale basketball’s Dick Derby Scholarship Award as a freshman in 2017-18.

Personal: Born in Baltimore, he is the son Shaun and Monica Gabbidon. His father played basketball at Christopher Newport University for one year. Has two brothers, Jini and Julian. Jini is a MIT graduate and played one year of basketball there. An uncle, Kurt Samuels played at UNC-Asheville before playing professionally overseas for more than a decade. He moved to Denver during the 2020-21 season – the year sports were canceled by the Ivy League – to co-found, along with another Yale basketball alum, a startup called Launchpad, a performance-enhancing fitness application. Went through Techstars in the summer of 2021. His goal after college is to be a successful entrepreneur and CTO for a startup; loves to build new things and plans to continue pursuing startups as a living. Chose Colorado because the opportunity to play at the highest level and continue to develop his professional skill set in a well-established master’s program was perfect for him. He interned at Google’s Pittsburgh office in the summer of 2019 and was scheduled to intern at Google’s headquarters in California in the summer of 2020 but instead worked remotely from his home in Harrisburg. He worked on the Google shopping team and was part of a software project that went live at the end of his internship. Volunteers at the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank. A National Merit Commended Scholar.