Caitlin has had lots of great games. She often single-handedly engineers wins for Iowa. She makes them an NC contender. Against VPI, her teammates shot poorly and she picked up the slack.
Still, I sometimes wonder if her great games are good for the rest of the team. I mean, beyond the W-L column. Playing next to a superstar high volume shooter may increase the pressure on other shooters on the team. They may think, “If I miss, will people think I should have passed it to Caitlin?”
In her defense, Caitlin gets lots of assists. It’s not like she’s excluding her teammates from the scoring column. And I’m sure Bluder encourages the others to shoot more. But 31 shots in a game means they deferred to her, maybe more than they should have. As tends to be the case with high volume shooters, that’s the team Caitlin has built for herself.
When Caitlin has been shut down, like by Nika, others have usually stepped up. This says to me that a different team culture has always been possible.
