Tavon Sledge

marothisu

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No, their job is to put the best team on the court as possible. Do you know what opportunity cost is Thompson? We were going to get better by using Sledge's scholarship on someone else. Teaching and developing Sledge would not likely have the same pay-off as teaching and developing another player.
Think of giving Sledge a scholarship as a sunk cost. Move on and find someone better.

Sorry, but coaching staff has multiple jobs. That's just one of their jobs. Another job of their's is to develop their players. This should be quite obvious. There's no ONE job a coaching staff has.

That being said, I think others have raised a great point that Sledge would have been the 3rd line off the bench probably with what we have coming in. However, he left before any of those guys committed to us. They all knew something and it's obvious. I think we just have better talent coming in, but Sledge IMO has a fair amount of potential.

I think Hoiberg said, you know what Tavon..you have potential, but I got a lot of guys coming in who are ahead of you who also have potential, so it might be best to leave if you want to get good minutes in D1 ball.

That doesn't mean he sucks or what not, it just means our talent level is increasing and Tavon isn't to the level of those incoming guys. He's still decently talented IMO and has potential. People are writing it off like the guy sucks or something, which is hilarious.
 
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marothisu

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How did he get it so he didn't have to sit out a year?

He got a "hardship waiver" which the NCAA has just begun to crack down on, so he got lucky.

I believe the guidelines are something like:
"Season-ending injury or illness occurs before the completion of the first half of the traditional playing season, results in incapacity to compete for remainder of season"

and

"has competed in less than one third of the maximum contests/DOC for the sport plus one."
 

swarthmoreCY

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Moving from one position to the other doesn't mean that they suck at that position, it might, but it depends on who's on your team. Stephen Curry played SG in his first few years of college..why? Because there was a guy better than him at the PG position playing PG. When that guy graduated, he moved to PG. By your same logic, Stephen Curry sucked at SG because he was moved to PG.
Listen to yourself.
The guy playing pg on Sledge's HIGH SCHOOL team is a better pg than him. Short of his teammate being a Big 12 pg, that is A LOT of development needed to become a Big 12 pg. The only logical reasons you stick with Sledge is if the goal ISU MBB was to make Sledge a Big 12 pg or that there were no better prospects available. Neither was true.

Your comparison to the Curry situation is so amiss, it indicates you are not understanding the situation. Curry got beat out by a pg who was at the needed level of play, AND Curry had the skills needed to contribute elsewhere. Sledge was not moved over in high school because hey had a better Big 12 pg on their roster. Further, unlike Curry, Sledge does not have the skills to play another position in the mean time.

In roster management the goal is not to remove all doubt that a guy like Sledge does not belong.
 
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marothisu

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Listen to yourself.
The guy playing pg on Sledge's HIGH SCHOOL team is a better pg then him. Short of his teammate being a Big 12 pg, that is A LOT of development needed to become a Big 12 pg. The only logical reasons if you stick with Sledge is if the goal ISU MBB was to make Sledge a Big 12 pg or that there are no better prospects available. Neither is true.

Your comparison to the Curry situation is so amiss, it indicates you are not understanding the situation. If Curry got beat out by a pg who was at the needed level of play, AND Curry had the skills needed to contribute elsewhere. Again Sledge was not moved over in high school because hey had a better Big 12 pg on their roster. Further, unlike Curry, Sledge does not have the skills to play another position in the mean time.

In roster management the goal is not to prove a guy like Sledge does not belong.

Listen, I understand your point, but the guy is in no way a bad player. It's obvious we had players coming in who were further along by a little bit in their development than he at the time.


The coaching staff has many hats and two of them are securing both LONG AND SHORT TERM success of a program. If they can get one guy who's not there yet but they believe 2 years from now he'll be good and that he'll be sitting on the bench while other guys play, they will still take him because the long term potential is there for the team, not just the short term. Only few teams like Kentucky can afford to keep planning for the short term. These are the teams that are the TOP programs, who always get the most elite talent who are a year away from being NBA ready. ISU doesn't have that yet, sorry.



I don't think he was going to be a starter, but I do think he could have DEVELOPED into a big 12 calibur bench player who did good things. The problem is that Hoiberg and him obviously knew he had more elite talent to start pouring into the program and that even if he sat on the bench for 2 years and developed, he probably still wouldn't be at the level he would want to be in his junior and senior seasons relative to other guys. Guys want playing time, they don't want to play a max of 12 minutes/game even. I guarantee you this is the reason he left. He's already getting tons of PT.

He was a recruit in year one of Hoiberg. Decent recruit, but once we started winning games and went to the tournament, we started getting more slightly elite commits. It's obvious Hoiberg and him realized the long term potential for the guy's playing time reduced as this went on. That's not to say he wouldn't be a Big 12 player. We just have better guys coming in.
 
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swarthmoreCY

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Sorry, but coaching staff has multiple jobs. That's just one of their jobs. Another job of their's is to develop their players. This should be quite obvious. There's no ONE job a coaching staff has.

That doesn't mean he sucks or what not, it just means our talent level is increasing and Tavon isn't to the level of those incoming guys. He's still decently talented IMO and has potential. People are writing it off like the guy sucks or something, which is hilarious.
Sorry, but the coaches do have one job, and that is to put on the floor the best team possible. Teaching and development is one way they go about accomplishing that job. So is finding better players.

It is clear you are too emotional on this issue- to a level where you could not understand the point. He was not a Big 12 pg or shooting guard, and he was not worth the opportunity cost of having him on scholarship to maybe develop into one (as evidence by "I think others have raised a great point that Sledge would have been the 3rd line off the bench probably with what we have coming in"). This discussion was never about saying Sledge sucks or that he did not have a possibility of someday being a Big 12 pg.
 

Cyclonin

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I think the improtant thing here is that a 5'9 guard, regardless of athleticism, got 7 boards, and 2 blocks. Damn.
 

Thompsonclone

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Swarthmore, players can get better. You know that right? Sledge wasn't going to be the same player as freshman later in his career. Everyone is acting like Sledge would be the only player on the team not improving.
 

swarthmoreCY

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Swarthmore, players can get better. You know that right? Sledge wasn't going to be the same player as freshman later in his career. Everyone is acting like Sledge would be the only player on the team not improving.
Thompson, my contention is not that players cannot get better. I would ask if you knew that, but clearly you do not. Nor do you understand opportunity cost.
 

Thompsonclone

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Oppurtunity cost? Name a team that plays every one of their scholarship players? Taking a risk with one scholarship will not hurt you.
 

swarthmoreCY

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Oppurtunity cost? Name a team that plays every one of their scholarship players? Taking a risk with one scholarship will not hurt you.
We did take that risk- when we signed Sledge. He became a sunk cost when we found out it was better for the program to use the scholarship on another "risk". Unless you think that we could not find players that would immediately be better than Sledge when they came in, you are making an argument based on solely on emotion.
 

mjhavlo76

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Jun 23, 2009
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Extremely well stated. Agree!

After seeing Naz Long play I don't see how Sledge would have ever carved out anything more than garbage time minutes here. We're already deep at guard and that's even without Babb too right now.
 

CycloneYoda

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I wish Sledge nothing but the best. However, his best days would not have been sitting on the ISU bench for 4 years.
 

marothisu

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Sledge had 9 points, 7 rebounds (3 offensive), 5 assists, 2 steals. and 0 fouls today versus Wake Forest..
 

Cyrok

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How did he get 2 blocks?!

There are 4-year starting guards that don't get 2 blocks in their careers...

I hope he has lots of success.