. . . For 24 years at Iowa, she wasn't getting top level talent to come to Iowa but through her and her coaching staff, she was able to develop a competitive program at Iowa. That is a testament to the coach and their coaching staff.
After an initial splash when the Iowa brand still carried some shine from the Stringer era, Bluder settled in for a long, hard road to great success. With the growth of the women’s game, not sure the Bluder slow-build approach is even an option anymore.
Bluder won the Big Ten Tourney her first year at Iowa (2001), with Angie Lee’s recruits, but lost the 4-5 game to go to the Sweet 16. Bluder then attracted 2 McDonald’s All Americans in 2002 (Lindsay Richards and Johanna Solverson), the first year of the McDonald’s game for girls. But injuries wrecked their careers, and it would be until 2011 before Bluder could attract another McDonald’s AA (Sam Logic). By that time, the Big Ten had settled into a second-tier league (2006-14, no BIG Final Fours, 2 Elite 8s), with even a co-BIG championship in 2008 for Iowa only being good enough for a 9 seed in the NCAA tourney.
In Logic’s senior year (2015, Bluder's 15th at Iowa), Bluder was still searching for her first Sweet 16, after 14 appearances (11 Iowa, 3 Drake). Bluder was a steady NCAA entrant, but as a usual 8, 9 or 10 seed, Iowa was going nowhere in the dance. Iowa had a chance in 2011, as a 6 seed, but got paired in the first round in Spokane against under-seeded Gonzaga, with Courtney Vandersloot. Had Bluder not finally gotten through to the Sweet 16 in 2015, she may not have survived the down years of 2016-17, while waiting for the good 2015 recruiting class (inc. Gustafson) to develop.
But Bluder did break through in 2015, and the Logic years helped elevate Iowa's recruiting in 2015 (3 ESPN top 100 players), so Bluder could continue on and survive her first back-to-back years of missing the NCAA tourney at Iowa. In a very real sense, Logic begat Gustafson, who in turn begat Caitlin Clark. The Gustafson and Clark eras would secure 5 Big Ten trophies (4 Big Ten Tourneys, 1 regular season), 2 Final Fours, 1 Elite 8 and 1 other Sweet 16. Logic, a WBCA All American her senior year, is sometimes forgotten in the story of Bluder and Caitlin Clark. Without Sam Logic, there would have been no Caitlin Clark at Iowa, and Bluder likely would have finished her career at Iowa without a single Sweet 16.
The breakthrough in 2015 might have come a year or two earlier, and likely gone further, had Kiah Stokes joined Sam Logic in the 2011 recruiting class. Stokes was just what Iowa was missing. Stokes played at Bluder's high school in nearby Marion, Iowa and Stokes' dad had played for Lute Olson at Iowa. Iowa recruited Stokes hard, and was a finalist, but it was always hard to tell if Iowa was a real or courtesy finalist along with UConn, Georgia, Maryland (coached by Iowan Brenda Frese) and Tennessee.
The Logic years, and the arrival of Maryland, had also convinced the powers at be at Iowa to up their financial commitment to WBB at Iowa. Maryland arrived in 2014-15 as light years better than the rest of the BIG, and it would be a little while before Kelsey Mitchell and Gustafson could elevate their respective teams to Maryland's level. But starting in 2019, Gustafson, Bluder and Iowa could make a little history. Quite a slow path to a great career finish.
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