5 Likes
His defense didn’t get worse this year, it’s always been like this. It was much more noticeable after 2020 (where he was a legit menace/terror because he could just stay overly aggressively plastered to his dude and there was SO much rim protection behind him). Then that run of having Huff/Diakite/Key ended and we replaced it with Huff/Hauser/Murphy, Shedrick/Gardner/Franklin, and then BVP/Gardner/Franklin (better when Shedrick/Dunn were mixed in).
Aside from his waning quality in help defenders, though, he’s always been a situationally good/bad defender depending on the matchup. He thrived against players who relied on quickness more than strength or had a bad handle or weren’t confident pull up jump shooters. He really struggled against either size that was willing/able to exploit the matchup or just secure ball handling and confident shooters off of the bounce (or both).
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If Reece doesn’t come back, instead of adding another grad transfer pg Im okay with just developing these three as ball handlers. Maybe add Bliss but maybe better to add him in 2024.
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Pretty straightforward from here
Monday - Zoom with Creighton staff (now that they’ve lost)
Tuesday - Traudt tells Tony
Wednesday - announcement
No inside info. Read it and weep along with me
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Guessing we hear sooner than that
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Good. Let’s put it behind us and I hope since we’ve spent the past week going through then stages of grief we won’t have to rehash it all. Much rather focus on who will be here next season.
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I want us to add bliss regardless
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Bliss comes in the morning?
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Sure but does this mean that Kadin and Taine are back for sure?
isn’t is possible, maybe probable, that Traudt has been homesick since day 1. That his intention to transfer has been known for some time. That Tony didn’t play him because he figured he was gone, and didn’t want to play him ahead of guys that were committed. And thats why Traudt “chose” to redshirt because he didn’t want to blow a year of eligibility?
Or, is it more likely that Tony made a bad decision in not playing Traudt.
I guess both could be true but seems more likely this has been in the works for a while. You don’t just suddenly get homesick in March of your first year.
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That’s been my thought since the moment heard the murmurs.
But regardless I’m not looking at LRA at work on a busy Monday morning.
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Been my thought as well, that maybe at some point Traudt asked CTB NOT to play him to preserve his eligibility. That said, why all this drama, he could have announced at any point last week after the season ended.
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This hasn’t been something “known for awhile”. If that was the case, why not jump ship in January? Has he been homesick? Probably but that’s not something that’s gonna be remedied in the middle of a competitive basketball season
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Playing time/redshirt not as big of an issue as it will be made out to be. The guy was looking at a very likely starting spot as a RS Freshman at an ACC power. That also needs to be taken into account when this is dissected.
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A lot of blame to go around and I think some of that needs to be shouldered by the athlete. He very likely made a poor decision to come to Virginia if he needed that home support this much.
Should Tony have played him? Yeah probably but that’s more because 5 years at one school ain’t happening anymore. I don’t buy the coddling stuff.
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XHoo, do you think CTB and staff need to make some tweaks with their roster building or roster management strategies? Seems we have been scrambling non stop since we unexpectedly lost Kyle and to a lesser extent Ty early, then the first, big group of transfers out a few years ago. I know we decided to hold scholly numbers below 13, but issues keep arising and scramble mode is on again. Or is this just gonna be the nature of college bb going forward and operating on the fly is going to be SOP
100%. I think there are some mitigating factors with how the transfer rule and NIL has come into play, BUT you’re right in that there have been too many recruiting misses leading to the scrambling you’ve seen over the past couple of seasons. ‘22/‘23 classes appear much more sound but you never know. ‘24 has to be another solid class or UVA will get stuck in the mud.
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I’m honestly not following the hypothesis that he chose to redshirt because he was already thinking about transferring. If the athlete is thinking “save a year of eligibility for Creighton” or “save a year of eligibility for Virginia”, I don’t even see a difference in motivation there. Either he wants to stay in college for 5 years or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t… then no need to redshirt. If he does… then redshirt. How would a transfer intention come into that thinking?
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I tend to agree with this logic.
I also think we are in an interesting time where there hasn’t been a “normal season” since 19.
Covid new transfer rules and NIL all hit at basically the same time and no one has fully grasped or figured it out.
Not an excuse for UVa’s current issues because they flat out missed on a few recruits but the new landscape is hard to catch up to when it’s a moving target
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Did I miss additional news on this front or is everyone just deciding to re-spiral with their morning coffee?
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Nobody’s spiraling my man. It is what it is
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No additional news yet.