I won’t go into full details, but I do think there are tradeoffs to changing our redshirt approach that almost never get discussed in this conversation.
But the more specific issue here is whether redshirting makes guys more likely to transfer. Traudt just isn’t a good case study one way or the other on this.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t actually matter whether he would have stayed or not if he had played last year, right?
Those focused on him saying he would have left anyway… firstly, people often think they’ll act a certain way and then, when put in that situation… they act differently. That experience would have been different and much more positive than this one and he came to the school both expecting to play right away and understanding what he was getting into system-wise. It’s certainly reasonable to doubt that he would have had the same opinion with a different experience.
But, even if he’s right about how it would have played out… that’s kind of irrelevant. What we know is that he didn’t want to redshirt and was disappointed by that outcome and so, at the very least, it didn’t help, didn’t make the decision to stay more difficult, and we didn’t have access to his shooting last year when we could have used it at times.
It’s like the focus of the counter to this argument is simply to say that there shouldn’t be blame on CTB/the coaching staff. But, ideally, given the same situation with the same player all over again, they wouldn’t make the same decision. So, mistake or no (no shame in admitting something is a mistake!), that’s really all that matters from here - that ideally they stop making that same decision with similarly talented players.
If CTB just gave an interview saying he wants to double-down on player retention, I imagine he’s giving his approach to Traudt some thought.
Speaking of, may I recommend a first call with a heartfelt plea if Tony wants to double down on player retention? (And yes, I suspect Tony has thought of this…)
Fundamentally I think this is where we diverge. Was he disappointed? His Dad said it was a family decision. The staff says they give players a choice with a clear assessment of scenarios for minutes that season. Traudt says it was a bummer - but also he wasn’t great at defense. What do we make of those 3 things together?
I think this is more about how Tony doles out minutes and that’s the conversation vs. do we continue to offer the choice to redshirt or not. It’s an important conversation, but a different one than do we change our approach to redshirt (eg do we not give players of a certain potential the choice).
I want to dispute some the spin Traudt is putting out. 1st think is and this is according to Tony. Isaac chose to transfer himself. Supposedly Bennett was surprised and expected Traudt to be contributing in rhe latter part of the year…
My own guess it is somewhere in the middle
Traudt did make the decision to redshirt but i can’t help but believe Tony probably helped edge him a little bit but i don’t know anything for sure. Traudt said he was expecting to make an impact immediately. I don’t believe that at all. When TB was recruiting Vander Plas,Tony talked to Traudt and his dad explaining how it was important to have experience in there for this 1 yeat and they said it was fine
The last think was that comment about UVA being defense oriented and thst he was an offensive playet. Alarm bell go off at that statement. Do you think Traudt might have knew UVA was defense oriented. Of course he did
Every player and fan in America knows that .
Im starting to believe Isaac is putting his own little twist to the story
Exactly. Traudt wasn’t going to play because of his defense, so the redshirt is moot
I do know how to speii. I just can’t type
Also … he had plenty of minutes to compete for this upcoming season. So the issue of not playing was not an issue going forward. TB did not force him to RS. Its obvious by his own admission that defense was an issue. It had nothing to do with playing time … he was homesick.
I hate to even dive into this stuff.
I had heard Traudt had brought up with the coaches that he was unsure about being able to defend to the level they wanted. But that’s pretty typical for a freshman at UVA.
Traudt and his family completely expected for him to play right away, and probably a lot. After Vander Plas was added, which they signed on to, his dad told me basically they’re not worried about other guys because Isaac is really good. They were all for adding players that would make the team better. It’s pretty common with high school recruits. They always underestimate the adjustment to college.
I had started to hear a few weeks leading up to the season opener that he had fallen down in the depth chart, and Dunn was moving up. At that time, the two were unrelated as they saw Dunn as a guard.
They talked to all three Traudt, Dunn, and Bond about redshirting before the opener. Of course different convos for each situation. But I’m sure Traudt never expected to be in a spot where that even comes up. After not playing in the opener, he decided to take the redshirt. His dad said that was their family decision, but you have to put it in perspective of never expecting to be in that situation and TB first bringing it up.
Just my guess but also from some things that were said by his family at that time…they were already leaning toward a transfer. Basically hinting at preserving his eligibility in case.
He should have gone to Creighton to start with. It was the obvious perfect fit right in his backyard. I think as he “blew up” he probably felt as many recruits do that they should chase the biggest brand/best conference etc instead of looking for the right fit.
Even going back into his recruitment, there were warning signs which I think the coaches picked up on. I’ve mentioned before they almost backed off of him near the end.
UVA and everybody else for that matter should stick to redshirting players that all but agree to it during their recruitment. Leon Bond did, and that’s why it’s not a problem. Jay Huff Jack Salt, etc. Same story. When you do it just because of numbers, you’re creating a transfer risk. In this case, it didn’t so much create the risk as it did take away the opportunity to remove it.
This always crossed my mind and I know others mentioned it as well on the board.
Beautifully said
You may hate to dive into it but I know we all appreciate it! As good of intel as anyone could get really. Thanks
I remember when there was talk about the staff backing off Traudt. I am sure they were tired of how it drug on but i can’t help but think that can be used as a recruiting tactic as well
… and we have no need to discuss Fish again.
#1 never went away. He would’ve had to be a HUGE offensive threat to offset his struggles defensively. I bet TB could’ve made it work but Traudt had no confidence he could play acceptable defense and bailed. The homesick/gf thing is a good story but that was #1 on your list for good reason.
At the same time Tony has been willing to sacrifice defense for offense like he did with Hauser.
Butttttttt regardless: 1) Staff screwed up and 2) regardless of staff, Traudt didn’t want to be here. Both are true. Anything else is hypothetical.
But this saga is finally closed. on to 2024 recruiting and the 2023-2024 season
Finally. Concrete evidence that my view on this matter is correct and everybody else’s is wrong, especially @haney ‘s. Thank you for settling that once and for all, HGN.
Every thread seems to devolve either into an argument about redshirts or an argument about Kihei. So let me be the first to save us some time and suggest: Traudt transferred because he heard Kihei was coming back for a sixth season
Yeah, this is great info and perspective, IMO. Point 2 and 8 especially are key to understanding both what happened and what to actually take away from the situation for the future.
I’ll just add this FWIW - the piece that I wrote about redshirting that focused on Traudt wasn’t done in a vacuum.
The redshirt absolutely amplified the situation, whether or not anything would have been different is up for debate but doesn’t really matter when it comes to the decision making for the future.
Salt, Huff and Shedrick were in the same RS situation as Bond and it went OK. You wonder if Hunter and Hall would have been transfer risks with the current no sit out rules. I don’t believe they expected to RS coming in.
I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure they have explicitly said close to that themselves in interviews