get that man some UVA kicks
Like Kentucky and Duke most every year.
Is there any update on an assistant coach? Johnny Carpenter? Wilkins?
Especially since they will all be wearing number 1.
I dont think so
Eamon Brennan and Brian Hamilton from the Athletic round up portal winners and losers and list us as a loser:
Again: There are programs that lost more net-net. But for sheer symbolic defeat, it is hard to look past Virginia’s loss of Isaac Traudt. For years, Tony Bennett’s Virginia program has been built on long-term player development. Often, that has meant redshirting potentially capable young players, putting them in the lab for a year, and then unveiling them when they are more fully formed, armed with a better understanding of Virginia’s stylistic demands — particularly on the defensive end. This has generally worked really well for UVa’s players and for its coaches; Virginia’s success since Bennett’s arrival has been predicated on the constant regeneration of highly honed veterans.
The problem? In an era in which it is (rightly!) very easy to up and leave, what if your guys don’t stay patient? Or what if, as in Traudt’s case, they get homesick and want to move back closer to family and familiarity? This spring, that meant losing a highly sought-after player with plenty of other top-end high-major offers from a strong recruiting class that spent a year on Virginia’s books, trained under its tutelage, and then left before ever playing a minute. That would hit hard for any program, but especially at a place where the whole idea is a long-term mutual investment, a you-get-what-we-all-put-in-over-time ethos.
There is also the matter of veteran big man Kadin Shedrick’s departure to Texas. Shedrick did the long-term development process, became a very effective true center by his sophomore year, entered last season as the clear starter and then was benched in favor of Ben Vander Plas midway through the campaign. He was one of the more highly sought-after bigs in the portal when the Longhorns’ staff lured him to Austin. Virginia has four players arriving via the portal, as well as two top-70ish freshman talents arriving, and there are solid pieces already in the program. But losing Shedrick is a blow, and the loss of Traudt hurts for different reasons — reasons that go beyond the difficulty of unexpected turnover.
Pay link:
That’s pretty spot on about the Traudt situation and why that one hurt so much. The Kadin situation is more complicated/messier than just losing starting job to BVP, part of me thinks he would have been gone anyways without BVP here. We don’t have any flashy big name transfers in but hoping Rohde turns out to be a big time add.
Their conjecture is a bit unknown for now. Let’s wait and see how Shedrick performs at Texas. If he excels, then maybe the staff made a mistake by inserting Vander Plas into the starting line-up. If he rides the bench for the Longhorns, then Traudt becomes the only significant loss, and I am unsure how that might have been avoided. Frosh get homesick and leave school all the time.
Yeah, I feel like UVA was dubbed a loser more in the sense that it particularly stung organizationally and philosophically than necessarily because it was a win or loss from a competitiveness standpoint.
If Traudt and Shedrick really light it up next year then it certainly could be a competitiveness loss, but I don’t think they’re even considering that aspect. Which sucks but is true.
While this is true, it’s even much more true that frosh get homesick and stay at school all the time.
One thing in response to @ElliottHoo and @73CAV who are making similar points: I agree that how good Kadin and Fish do next year and for Fish, in coming years, will matter to the point of how much we lost, I just want to add that, while their success or lack thereof in their new spots will tell us something about how they would’ve done if we had kept them in the fold, there’s an element “we will never know” here, and IMO at least somewhat secondary to the point of needing to keep those “type” of guys in the fold. (bonus points to me for one helluva run-on sentence)
True, too. I just don’t think a kid should be pilloried because he’s unhappy and wants to go home.
Yeah. But also … is Traudt symbolic of the ease at which players these days can jump from school to school? Or was he going to be gone no matter what?
By all indications it’s the latter, which is why the loss doesn’t actually feel symbolic of “this day and age.” In general, the portal has been Virginia’s friend. If the guys we have lost would have stuck around, it’s unlikely we’d have done better these last few years.
In many respects, the immediate eligibility aspect of today’s transfer portal can be a very useful tool WRT roster management. If a player is in his first two years, and doesn’t see a path to future playing time, then leaving can be beneficial to both the player and the school. First, the player gets the opportunity to contribute at a lower level of competition. Second, a scholarship is freed for the staff to use. This was true before immediate eligibility was added. Now, matters are more easily facilitated. A program only suffers when a player who is a significant contributor in the primary rotation leaves. That is a problem, but it is one that effects mid-majors, and lower, more often than P5(6) schools. And, as it relates to earlier discussions, would either Shedrick or Caffaro have been part of next year’s primary rotation? And, if so, how significant would their roles have been?
Yeah. That CTB likes NIL better than free transfers (or hates it less, potato-potahto) was pretty remarkable to me.
All facts
I think we can all agree the real lesson of UVA’s dealings with Isaac Traudt is we can never again leave nicknaming up the to coaching staff. No wonder he transferred.
Traudt, if homesickness is the actual reason, was gone whether he played or not. The implicit criticism from The Athletic and others in LRA is that he wouldn’t have transferred if he played. There is no evidence to support that unless you believe that Traudt is lying.
Or you believe that splashing threes at JPJ helps with homesickness