The Wisconsin Badgers had quite the season this year, making their way into the Final Four before a tough 3-2 loss to the Kentucky Wildcats to end a memorable campaign.
It was a team filled with younger
players, and the Badgers also dealt with some injuries, both before the season and throughout the year. Nonetheless, it was a very solid season for the program, and one that felt like a building block for 2026.
The day after the season ended, Wisconsin saw several players enter the transfer portal. A majority of those players were younger pieces, but there was one major surprise: outside hitter Una Vajagic, who had seen her role grow as the season went on and improved throughout the year. She was poised for a big role in 2025, which is why her decision to transfer shocked head coach Kelly Sheffield.
Speaking on The Kelly Sheffield Show, the Badgers head coach was unfiltered, explaining how the situation went down and why he felt Wisconsin was sabotaged in the process.
“We come to find out that Una is considering leaving, which, through all of us, I mean, that was a shock and hard to believe at first when we weren’t sure what was going on,” Sheffield said. “And then all of a sudden, she became a totally different person than what we’ve known for two years. I mean, that was the only [transfer] that I ever fought for because I just could not understand. I couldn’t get my head wrapped around what was happening here. I mean, we were clearly being sabotaged and didn’t really understand why. It always comes back to what is somebody’s goals and what somebody’s dreams [are], and hers is to play at the highest level.
“After having multiple conversations, I sent an email to the family and to her at 2:36 on Sunday morning, on Saturday night and laid out, ‘look, man, if you’re wanting to do this, look what we just did for Sarah Franklin’s career. Look what we just did for Mimi’s career.’ And in the year that she had, and we laid out that the first half of the regular season, she hit .222. The second half of the regular season, she hit .266. And then the NCAA tournament, she hits .320. I said this, that’s exactly what your career should be looking like.”
Sheffield went on to point out how the program supported Vajagic as she went through injuries in her freshman season, noting the switch up as her career was starting to take off.
“I reminded, ‘hey, your first year, we gave you money, and we put you on scholarship when you had a torn ACL.’ And we knew that, but what we weren’t notified, that nobody told us, is that she had a bad shoulder when she got here. We didn’t learn that until she got here, but we got that healthy as well. And so now all of a sudden you’re healthy and doing well, and now you’re going to take your talents elsewhere.
“We couldn’t understand. We thought playing with the best setter in the game, playing off of the team that just went to a Final Four. Apparently, she wasn’t happy with her role. But, it’s like, you’re second on the team and attempts and kills, and you’re a leading attempt person coming back. This is set up perfectly for you to continue to grow.”
Sheffield continued, sharing that it felt external voices were twisting the truth, clearly getting into Vajagic’s head.
“For some reason, it got into her head that her role wasn’t the right way, that we were trying to turn her into a D/S. I could not understand where was this coming from. And then, [she was] very upset that our incoming players were making more money than her. And I said that is ludicrous. I don’t know where you’re getting this information, but our newcomers are not getting paid more than you. And she was certain because somebody had told her that they were, which is made up because nobody knows how much anybody is getting.
“And so there became this disrespect that she felt like we were having. And so there was a lot of back and forth, but she stopped talking. She met in person [and] we had one phone conversation. And then she stopped talking with me. It was just the agent. She stopped talking with all teammates, wasn’t responding back to them. And so it became clear what was, what was happening.”
Sheffield inferred that Vajagic’s agent, who represented four players on Wisconsin’s team in 2025, benefited from the situation with a high percentage of player earnings. And that’s become a problem in a lot of college sports.
Across the board, we’re seeing certain players get bad information from their representation and enter the transfer portal or make a rash decision, only to face the consequences for those decisions when the reality isn’t what they expected. Agents are incentivized to have players enter the portal to maximize their own earnings with the agent fee, and that has created even more chaos in college sports.
Vajagic ended up transferring to Arizona State, which went 28-4 this season and earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. They were bounced by No. 3 Creighton after winning their first two postseason matches.
Wisconsin moved quickly to add an outside hitter in the transfer portal, landing UC San Diego transfer Eva Travis after losing Vajagic. They could also look to their freshmen class for some production. But this was a very unfortunate situation for Wisconsin.
