oh of course. I am pretty sure all of our redshirts have been vocal that the redshirt year was mentally hard in their interviews. No doubt.
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I suspect no matter how much you stress to a kid that they may end up redshirting or just not seeing minutes early in their careers, they are also all used to be among the best on their team and have the confidence that makes them assume that wonât be them. And so when it happens with a kid like JAR, his immediate reaction is that heâs in the wrong program and the coaches are making bad decisions, because it canât be that his game just isnât ready yet.
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very good point hometeam
I donât understand the angst over a redshirt approach. Itâs merely a way to preserve a year of eligibility for a player who is unlikely to see playing time over more prepared players on the roster. I suppose if a kid refused and said heâd rather have some games of mop-up duty, theyâd let him. As I understand, redshirting is an intention or a plan that doesnât get consummated until the end of the year. If a player is on that path but clearly makes progress that could make him useful, playing time could increase at any point, only burning the idea of a redshirt. I just donât see this as a big thing to worry about for a player who the coaches think is unlikely to earn more than a few minutes of PT as a first-year. I do love that the coaches are being very matter of fact with recruits so as to give them a realistic expectation. It doesnât relieve every player of some disappointment, but they canât say they were misled.
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Angst revisited, this time with bullet points:
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Extra year of eligibility often pointless for good players (Dre, Mikal Bridges); often âso whatâ-y for less good players.
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Players want to play and get antsy during RS year and no sit out rule now means that they can change their minds on a dime and go somewhere else without sitting out and losing a year of eligibility. (As Iâm fairly certain around has been hinted around for guys like Dev â the thought of having to sit again somewhere else helped them stay around)
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Players can add weight, skills, etc in offseason, and heck, if theyâre not playing, Iâve never heard a persuasive argument as to why they canât do it in season.
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Players get better by playing, IMO. Players can add weight by not playing; they can develop their bodies by not playing; they can mature by not playing; they can become better students by not playing; they can become better video gamers by not playing. But Iâm skeptical they can become better players. In this regard, practice is not a good substitute.
So thatâs the case for the angst. To rebut some your points, which I will paraphrase for ease of reference:
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Plan is not consummated until end of year: Thatâs not quite right, is it. Itâs developed at the beginning of the year, and kept in place barring very serious setbacks (like in the Jesperson case). If it were more like, letâs see if you play, and if you donât, then we will RS you, Iâd agree with you. But hoops has so much cupcake time and blowout time that you have to actively decide not to play the RS guys at various times throughout the year.
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âRSâs can be burned as needed.â True, in theory, but not in fact. Itâs the sunk coast fallacy. Rather than just make a contemporaneous decision in Feb of 2017 as to whether or not to play Dre (my understanding is that was a relatively easier decision), the coaches chose to stick with their fall plan, even though it had become a bad plan. They laid a trap for their future selves, and then stepped in it.
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âPlayers canât say they were misled.â Nope, they canât. But Iâm not sure what value that holds to us or the program if they decide to walk after a RS year.
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I agree- we used to have a safeguard due to players not *wanting to sit again if they transfer, and now we do NOT have that. In addition if we are going to recruit less scholarship players than the max amount each year, and then we are ALSO going to redshirt 1-2 players each year then we have a much slimmer margin (8-9-ish players) that we will have available to play. Every year weâve had someone get hurt (Kadin, Dre, Jay, Braxton, Kihei, Justin, Guy, Harris, Malcolm) etc. so then we may get down to 7-8 players available to play. Wouldnât it be nice to not have to worry about a player who is redshirting and just have them available at the end of the bench?
Another consideration is that Tony and the coaches do ALOT of scouting, and courting of players to *finally land them in a UVa uniform- if theyâre unhappy due to playing time then it sucks to have all of that work be for not and have them transfer the next year.
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Thats why Tony has been extremely careful of vetting this recruiting cycle. He is very much placing an emphasis on culture and setting expectation. Hence why he vetted Leon Bond so much and is setting clear expectations with Ryan Dunn should he join.
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I wasnât talking about player angst. I was talking about yours. Not sure why anyone would get in a lather over a first-year player who may have been told by the coaching staff that he has a difficult path to playing time given the current roster. And if those 4 minutes/game are critical in your opinion, then so be it. Not sure what it did for Stattman. I wouldnât have traded Hallâs final year for a few minutes his first year. I suspect Hunter could have helped the team at some point in his first year, but he wasnât going to make it a Final Four team. May have even caused him to leave prior to the Natty team. If your argument is to play all 12 or 13 scholarship guys meaningful minutes to prevent them from getting antsy and leaving, thatâs just not going to happen. So why not be honest with each player in his projection for playing time and then see if a RS makes sense for someone at the low end of the totem pole. I have no idea what the staff is telling any of these guys, but moreso than for any other program in the country, Iâm confident that itâs the truth.
Edit: my redshirt comment was made in question of the current rules - it appears likely that the rule will change, similar to football, to allow players to compete in 6-8 games. That could allow some mop up time or strategic development time for a player in a RS year.
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Yeah I definitely appreciate the approach- I just think itâs *tougher to find those type of players that 1. Fit our system, 2. Are Top 100 guys, 3. Are in tune with the 5 pillars (atleast 5 pillarish). 4. Are okay with redshirting. So once you find those guys to then have them transfer as several of them did *this year it must be a bit frustratingâŠWith all of that said if he finds players that fully embrace it, which we seem to be doing we will be fine.
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The biggest x-factor is the transfer rule that allows players to leave freely. But some of those decisions have to be impacted by our willingness to bring in transfers too. I have to think that Trey Murphyâs ascent at least contributed to the discontent of JAR and/or McKoy. That was a weird situation in that his plan was to sit out a year and put work in the weight room and practice gym.
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Yeah itâs just interesting that he is literally gone and they both *still transferred. Oh well!
Re: your edit. Thatâs very interesting. I was wondering about something like that. Could make things easier in the sense that guys get little taste of PT and coaches get a better sense of what guys can do under the bright lights. But may make roster planning even more difficult because there are more guys eligible for the 5th year (although the NCAA has temporarily created that situation now).
Will also add on top of what gna2r said that I think itâs a good vetting strategy as a way to find team-first guys willing to sacrifice, etc. But Iâd still think twice about actually doing the thing itself.
No doubt itâs clusterf* for roster management with the extra year rule. Best the coaches can do is be open and honest. I donât know if the rule will happen, but it sure makes sense to allow that flexibility and potential for development.
https://www.si.com/college/tmg/mark-blaudschun/college-basketball-redshirt
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Makes sense. Said in another interview he wanted to hear from Kentucky anyways. With Bond and maybe Dunn on board we should be set in the near future at wing. Add a stud transfer if need be.
247 releases their 2022 rankings tomorrow. Rankings are bulls&^$ but also I am intrigued to see where everyone ends up. 247 deliberately took the extra weeks to work on these rankings instead of updating mid august, so if the rankings are still horrendous they deserve to be flamed even more.
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Part of our fanbase would be sick to their stomach if we ever recruited another new zealander⊠but i mean cmon the intangibles are there.
Nigerians man. That isnât an error on the wingspan
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Go go gadget arms!
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