You can’t promise a certain amount of PT but I think you can make it part of the culture to try to get everybody* a little bit of game experience if they choose not to redshirt. As I’ve been saying elsewhere (this is my new toy, I have to keep trotting it out) this means do what we’ve done with Taine the last 2 years: one night he gets first-half minutes, then he disappears for the next 6 weeks. But he got his chance to sink or swim, and he needs to be ready because you never know when it’ll happen again.
For me this is strictly a young-player-retention tactic. If a guy knows he’ll be called upon (albeit rarely) in real game minutes, and so he knows his teammates are relying on him, I think that builds team bonds in a way that doesn’t happen with a guy who clearly will never impact a game this year.
*excluding the practice players like Tristan and Chase
Yeah, I assume BVP was better than Traudt this year. But that’s my point, we sacrificed the long term to benefit the short term. It’s easy to say all of this in hindsight. Maybe Tony thought BVP was the missing piece to a legit title contender, I’m not saying it was an obvious or easy decision. The more I think about it, BVP is less the issue, instead I think Traudt should’ve played over Papi, who we know has a low ceiling. I agree, none of this is clear cut. So you just have to make a judgment call and hope for the best, but I think we need to err on the side of protecting our most valuable assets.
While I’d like for Traudt to have played (mostly for retention purposes, also for development), given his double-digit fouls in the b/w game I don’t think it’s reasonable to think there was ever a situation where he could have played a lot.
We are really getting down in the weeds if we are monday morning qbing Traudt’s usage in a game that was contested throughout especially when the NET would have killed us for a single digit score.
Yeah I agree with your idea. It also feels “smaller” than a lot the bigger shifts being talked about here. Mostly just think changes need to be deliberate so we can 1) learning the right lessons, and 2) have a clear eye view of the real tradeoffs (many of which we are guessing about).
I mean, this happened the last two years in the opener. “We can’t take out our starters (and/or top rotation guys) against this bad team because our starters are struggling. Everyone got that logic?”
Then he should have been playing at the beginning. If you want to make that argument fine! But it don’t get critiquing an end of game decision when Net plays such a big role in seeding and getting in the tourney and when a couple of possessions could make a huge difference.
I’m just saying that the logical reaction to “we are struggling” is not necessarily - “well that’s a good reason to keep doing what we are doing.” (I get that losing to NCC would’ve been bad – just like losing to Navy was bad).
Well, one of his points was that Traudt should’ve played. I agree! Another of his points was that it was a blowout. I disagree. (But we probably could’ve brought him in at the end and made this whole convo moot). (for example - for the last 8 minutes of the game, they never cut it under 10, and that would’ve been a just fine point to bring him in).
His point was the should have played at 3:30 left when we were up by 15. And that seems like a lot of monday morning qbing when a couple of possessions could have potentially shifted our post season outlook.
Dunn also didnt play and he had a great first year.
Our first game next year, we win the tip, Tony immediately calls timeout and does a full line substitution. We bring the ball in bounds, another immediate timeout, he subs in anyone who’s left.
Caffaro played 10 minutes against NCCU, and he played well(scored 10 points). I still think Traudt should’ve been ahead of him in the rotation to start the season, because we knew what we had in Caffaro, and just the possibility of what Traudt could be is worth getting him on the floor.
If that was his point, then I agree whole-heartedly! (whether we can define that as a blowout or not, is a semantic argument).
The relevant point is that NCC was a not particularly good MEAC team and KenPom says we had a 99% chance of winning from about 10 minutes to go in the game, and at the point Vandy cites we had a 99.9% chance of winning, and therefore it’s still theoretically possible we could have lost, yes, but it’s so highly unlikely that a coach should probably start thinking about much more likelihood outcomes – like, what will my highly talented / super high-ceiling young guys think if I keep them nailed to the end of the bench.
And yes, this is Monday morning QBing in a sense — but that’s what we do – and also I think nobody here was really thinking we should keep Traudt on the bench against a MEAC team, so in that sense, I don’t really think it is.
Two possessions could have shifted that to a negative result in the NET. My point had nothing to do with losing, for the purposes of our post season, it was a tight game.
Okay, then we completely disagree. The effect that would have had on the NET (a few possessions in the negative direction – say a 5 point win rather than a 12 point win) is about the same as me going the game and farting at a key moment.
Despite your colorful analogy, it does. 10 point win does matter in Net especially against a bad team. And if Traudt not getting into mop up duty against nc central was the dividing line between him staying and going, this was never going to work out.