On free agency: “Now where we’re going, I think we’re going to free agency,” said Brey, the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches Board of Directors. “[C]oaches don’t want that…"
On raiding other teams’ rosters: “(Michigan State head coach) “[Tom Izzo] had a very impassioned speech one day in one of our spring meetings as this was trending this way—and now the waivers have put us in this position,” Brey offered. “He said ‘We’re going to be stealing off of each other. Recruiting off of each other’s rosters’.”
Revisiting the impact on Virginia: Guys who think they aren’t going to get much playing time next year may opt to leave, now including guys who sat for a redshirt year. If the rules were in place now, would guys like McKoy and Stattmann think about their options?
They barely play this year. Next year looks worse: Bennett’s not going a lot more than 8 deep, and you’ve got Hauser, Huff, Clark, Abdur-Rahim, Caffaro, Beekman, Morsell, and Woldetensae. That’s eight. Add in McCorkle and Shedrick needing developmental minutes.
Now, it’s in Virginia’s best interest to keep them. You might think, “Hey, if they go, we can just recruit better players by raiding other rosters!”
But that’s wrong. They are developing their games, and learning the system. They’re ideal roleplayers in their 3rd and 4th years. That has been the Virginia Model. Think of guys like Mamadi Diakite and Jay Huff. Would they have thought about leaving at the end of their second years? Where would we be now without them? Our big men especially take a long time to develop.
Now, flash forward: if Virginia can no longer slowly develop role players, the Virginia Model has to change. It also means the developmental redshirt won’t have the ‘glue’ factor – meaning that you couldn’t transfer after redshirting without burning a year of eligibility. Now you can redshirt at Virginia, play one year, and leave. That’s a tremendous investment by Virginia out the window.
So maybe there’s more risk than I initially thought.