To Those of You Who Think That Caitlin Clark Is a Selfish Shooter ...

[Seahorn]

How dominant has Caitlin Clark been for Iowa basketball? These charts tell the story:

Through three seasons at Iowa, Caitlin Clark has put up astounding stat lines, and last weekend's Elite Eight performance was just one example.

www.desmoinesregister.com

Food for thought......CC more than a shooter!

 

[Bjbod]

The Big Ten is hardly a top WBB conference.

I'm fully aware of all the great out-of-conference teams Geno puts on the schedule every year, but it's because he needs to for tourney experience because of the weakness of the Big East. I think the Big Ten will be down at the top compared to last season when it had 5 Top 20 teams, but let's not forget the Huskies got taken out last year by the 4th place team in the Big 10. You may scoff at this comment, but I don't think fans outside of Iowa realize how tough their 3 games are every year vs their intrastate rivals: Iowa State, Northern Iowa, and Drake. These are games where you can throw the records out every year, and they are played on a home and away basis, so every other season they're playing at Drake and UNI. Lots of these opposing players are from Iowa and they're not in awe of Caitlin one bit. I'll have to disagree that Clark's had any kind of cakewalk, and I'd argue that the Big 10 is superior to the Big East in womens basketball.

 

[Plebe]

I'm fully aware of all the great out-of-conference teams Geno puts on the schedule every year, but it's because he needs to for tourney experience because of the weakness of the Big East. I think the Big Ten will be down at the top compared to last season when it had 5 Top 20 teams, but let's not forget the Huskies got taken out last year by the 4th place team in the Big 10. You may scoff at this comment, but I don't think fans outside of Iowa realize how tough their 3 games are every year vs their intrastate rivals: Iowa State, Northern Iowa, and Drake. These are games where you can throw the records out every year, and they are played on a home and away basis, so every other season they're playing at Drake and UNI. Lots of these opposing players are from Iowa and they're not in awe of Caitlin one bit. I'll have to disagree that Clark's had any kind of cakewalk, and I'd argue that the Big 10 is superior to the Big East in womens basketball.

The person you're responding to is a South Carolina (SEC) fan.

 

[Alydar]

Paige may have to be "more like Cate" if UConn's shooting woes continue!

The two rosters minus the two stars are in different leagues especially on the defensive end. UConn's shooting/scoring has sucked for a couple of games. The whole offense has to be adjusted because two of the three really good 3pt shooters are out. But the defense has been very good.

Other than SCar I don't see any well-oiled machines anywhere.

 

[Cuango]

Clark has a higher assist ratings than Paige as well as rebounding. Not sure, someone (Clark) who has been at or near the top in assists throughout her career should just be considered a me first shooter.

Let’s not forget that Paige does not play the point for UConn so many of the assists that would normally be hers ho instead to Nika. Having said that, it is clear that both are magnificent players and you really couldn’t go wrong with either one of them. Nevertheless, my choice would still be Paige! She is just built different and I consider her to be (when fully healthy) simply the best I’ve ever seen!

 

[Bone Dog]

Then you and I have very different understandings of the word "cakewalk." If anything, by your own description, it's Caitlin who has "held up the sky" for Iowa for three seasons and counting.

If we entertain your thesis that coach Bluder has executed a devious coaching conspiracy to "skew" Clark's scoring stats upward, she must also be commended for doing similarly with her assists — since Clark led the country in assists per game in each of the past two years (and was 3rd in her freshman year).

What a cakewalk! Why, with such deceitful coaching as that, any ol' player could just waltz out there and lead the country in points and assists while surrounded by much lesser talent.

Surely you’re joking. When did I ever say Lisa Bluder’s coaching scheme was deceitful? And when did I ever deny Caitlin was a great player? Troll someone else.

 

[Charliebball]

I rarely make predictions, but, barring injuries, Clark will be NPOY at the end of the season.

or perhaps another player besides Clark, Paige or Reese will step forward and play great and help her team to major success........

 

[Rb335]

I think evaluating Clark is a very nuanced task. First, yes, she’s a volume shooter. If she wasn’t averaging nearly 30 ppg taking as many shots as she does, there would be a major issue. But you must admit that she makes a lot of shots, and is a really good shooter. When I compare her to Paige, a big difference is shot selection. Paige doesn’t really take many poor shots. While Clark is willing to pull up from near half court. If she exercised the same shot selection, I don’t think anybody would continue to pick on her efficiency.

On the contrary, a big result of her crazy shots, is that she creates a sense of panic for defenses. Players fear that she will shoot at any moment, from any spot. And she’s made enough of them in her career that you must honor that. It creates a flurry of defensive attention, all directed at her, all of the time. Since she’s so comfortable handling the ball, she is often able to cause a defensive error, dribble out of it, and either spot up or drop a dime. That defensive panic opens up her teammates, a lot. That’s why her assist numbers are so great. She may taken bad shots, but the mere idea that she’s going to shoot creates so many opportunities for her teammates.

If I am to critique one thing, it’s that she sometimes struggles with knowing the value of a possession. In their first meeting with K State, I felt like she took and missed a lot of ill advised shots. Basically felt like a turnover. In the second meeting, I thought she took better shots, and knocked in big ones in crunch time. Sometimes I wish she would know, we need a score on this possession, so let’s get a high percentage look opposed to the high risk high reward 35 footer.

 

[Sifaka]

Clark is an uncommonly fine player—except for those rare moments when she competes for the Ogunbawale sportsmanship award.

Footage emerges of Caitlin Clark shove that prompted intentional foul call

In the Iowa women's basketball team's win over Purdue Fort Wayne last Friday, Caitlin Clark was seen barging over an opponent in what opposing coaches saw as a dirty play

www.themirror.com

 

[browns]

Let’s not forget that Paige does not play the point for UConn so many of the assists that would normally be hers ho instead to Nika. Having said that, it is clear that both are magnificent players and you really couldn’t go wrong with either one of them. Nevertheless, my choice would still be Paige! She is just built different and I consider her to be (when fully healthy) simply the best I’ve ever seen!

Without debating certain aspects of each others game maybe the point "fully healthy" says it all .

 

[Surly1]

or perhaps another player besides Clark, Paige or Reese will step forward and play great and help her team to major success........

Well Cameron Brink must have heard you because she's been on fire this year. I think Stanford is better this year as a result of addition by subtraction. While I love Haley Jones, I thought her style of play hurt Stanford's other players (notably Kiki Iriafen) last year. Brink seems unleashed knowing she's the centerpiece. Unlike Paige, Caitlin & Angel, she adds another dimension defensively with her shot blocking ability.

Back to the Paige/Caitlin comparison. While I'm an unabashed Bueckers fan, I love to watch Caitlin & Iowa play every opportunity I can. The past couple of seasons, Iowa's offense has been a thing of beauty, surpassing UConn's historic crispness. Of course, the incessant injuries hasn't helped UConn build any form of consistency. It's true that Clark has benefitted playing with the same core. Everyone knows the offensive scheme inside and out, and the supposed "role" players are damm good.

The question is Clark accumulating her stats as a result of playing in a system tailored to her talents, or is she simply that good. I would say it's a combination of both. Iowa had a great guard in Kathleen Doyle before Caitlin came on board, offering an insight to what Iowa's offense could look like. Credit Lisa Bluder for getting the perfect player who could maximize the capabilities of her offense.

There are so many issues comparing players. Stats can be manipulated and are often skewed based on how the player is used. Clark is a phenomenal, long-range shooter. She has expanded her game from her freshman season. She has great vision, unabashed confidence and plays with a fearlessness. In contrast, Paige is more cerebral. She's better suited to the UConn program of team over individual performance. It was a struggle at times for her to assert herself as a freshman, although she rose to the occasion when called upon and mostly delivered. For UConn to be successful this year, Paige will have to assert herself more offensively as the outright leader of the team.

Overall, both players are in the right programs. There's no reason why we can't be fans of both.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

Good point. I guess that's why Caitlin played so poorly against the SEC champions in the national semifinal.

Does that change the fact that the Big Ten isn't a top WBB conference?

 

[WFFL]

I rarely make predictions, but, barring injuries, Clark will be NPOY at the end of the season.

JuJu

 

[Dillon77]

I'm fully aware of all the great out-of-conference teams Geno puts on the schedule every year, but it's because he needs to for tourney experience because of the weakness of the Big East. I think the Big Ten will be down at the top compared to last season when it had 5 Top 20 teams, but let's not forget the Huskies got taken out last year by the 4th place team in the Big 10. You may scoff at this comment, but I don't think fans outside of Iowa realize how tough their 3 games are every year vs their intrastate rivals: Iowa State, Northern Iowa, and Drake. These are games where you can throw the records out every year, and they are played on a home and away basis, so every other season they're playing at Drake and UNI. Lots of these opposing players are from Iowa and they're not in awe of Caitlin one bit. I'll have to disagree that Clark's had any kind of cakewalk, and I'd argue that the Big 10 is superior to the Big East in womens basketball.

Hey, not this guy!! And, as far as I'm concerned, the game against Kansas State was not a drop-off and loss to a non-quality opponent either; particularly with the return of Ms. Lee. Plus, bring in Creighton, who play a fine brand of ball -- as UConn fans know -- and there's some regular hellzapoppin' going on just west of the Mississippi.

As for Clark and Bueckers, let's get the obvious out of the way: If Paige returns to full strength (knock on the best of woods) and most of the people posting here are true WBB fans -- we're all going to enjoy having them in the same backcourt for years to come on the U.S.A. National Team. They'll each have individual and different challenges with other teams, as noted, but they're both great players.

I was mourning Clark committing to Iowa for a year (ok, reality: two years ), but I then realized she's put a whole state (save for those wily colleges named above) on her back. Good for the region and WBB.
(Plus, the Irish got a bespectacled wonder named Olivia Miles, who -- unfortunately -- is out for now.
So, of course, we get to watch a whirling dervish named Hidalgo now.).

A lot of great players who handle the ball are up, coming and coming back Enjoy!
Go Paige and Caitlyn!

 

[Dillon77]

Why a thread about Iowa?

The season has started.

I believe there is a general basketball thread for Iowa.

I'll now put this thread on Ignore since there any useful UConn information.

Have a nice day.

Well, I was kind of wondering how this was initially on the UConn side of the board, but perhaps it stayed because the poster was referencing how Paige was looking to shoot a bit more, a la Caitlin. And then, away it went.

Probably the cross-referencing is probably best done on WBB, but would it have gotten as many people involved?

 

[Bigboote]

Clark is an uncommonly fine player—except for those rare moments when she competes for the Ogunbawale sportsmanship award.

Footage emerges of Caitlin Clark shove that prompted intentional foul call

In the Iowa women's basketball team's win over Purdue Fort Wayne last Friday, Caitlin Clark was seen barging over an opponent in what opposing coaches saw as a dirty play

www.themirror.com

I didn't see the footage in the linked article, but it's available on youtube. WOW!

 

[Sifaka]

I didn't see the footage in the linked article, but it's available on youtube. WOW!

Scroll down. It's there. And not pretty.

 

[Bjbod]

I've watched Caitlin since she was in 9th grade as my kids were in a school that played her annually; shameless plug: we beat her in 4 out of 5 games. That being said, I've never seen her do something like this. I went back and watched the first half of the game to see if she was being overly hammered upon by Purdue Ft. Wayne, didn't really see anything at all. I did notice at the 2:46 mark of the 2nd qtr that she was shaking her hand going back on defense and had a right eye that looked like she might have been poked.

That being said, a very bad look for her. Absolutely no reason for the shove, even if there were some unflattering words being exchanged.
Don't expect to see it again. If so, ....

 

[bballnut90]

I just don't get why some fans here are so hellbent on undermining Clark as a way to build up Bueckers. It's been 3+ years of these types of threads where a number of people feel the need to put down Clark in order to validate Paige. Every year there's arguments that she takes too many shots, she has inflated stats because her teammates aren't good, now her teammates are better than Paige's and that's why she has it easier and has inflated stats. The deep dives into explaining why she isn't really that good are so over the top. I've never seen a non-UCONN player get talked about so much on here in my 20 years on the BY. Clark being great or awful has zero impact on Paige's ability as a player.

 

[Plebe]

Does that change the fact that the Big Ten isn't a top WBB conference?

We're off in non sequitur territory, but I suppose you think the SEC is the bee's knees and that Clark would've had a much harder time in Bee's Knees Land.

To test this hypothesis, let's examine how Clark fared against SEC teams in last season's NCAA tournament (note that this sample is skewed since it only comes from the upper half of the SEC):

vs Georgia: 22 points, 12 assists.
vs South Carolina: 41 points, 8 assists.
vs LSU: 30 points, 8 assists.
Average vs SEC teams in the NCAA tournament: 31.0 points, 9.3 assists.

Quelle surprise ! Both stats were above her season averages. Looks like the SEC's upper crust is the real "cakewalk" as far as Caitlin Clark is concerned.

 

[diggerfoot]

I just don't get why some fans here are so hellbent on undermining Clark as a way to build up Bueckers. It's been 3+ years of these types of threads where a number of people feel the need to put down Clark in order to validate Paige. Every year there's arguments that she takes too many shots, she has inflated stats because her teammates aren't good, now her teammates are better than Paige's and that's why she has it easier and has inflated stats. The deep dives into explaining why she isn't really that good are so over the top. I've never seen a non-UCONN player get talked about so much on here in my 20 years on the BY. Clark being great or awful has zero impact on Paige's ability as a player.

Even though I speak out the most about Clark’s teammates being great shooters I suspect you are reacting to someone else, but just in case:

In other threads I qualified that you can be an elite shooter but not an overall elite player, which helps explain why Iowa has such a beautiful offense but is terrible at defense. At no time did I refer to Iowa teammates as better players, just more efficient on offense from being good shooters playing together for so long.

I never referred to Clark’s job being easier, the reason why I think you must be responding to someone else. Otherwise, this is a straw man argument

There was a previous thread, not this one, in which I allude to Clark’s assist stats getting a boost from her efficient teammates, but that was in defense of Muhl, not Bueckers. And I was defending her from UConn fans critiquing their own. I also made clear that Clark is a superstar and Muhl is not, but Muhl has been trained as a PG her whole basketball career and it shows in her passing efficiency.

I get tired of the phrase that Clark carries her team, when their beautiful offense is a team effort. Why should that concern a UConn fan? Because of calls for Bueckers to do the same in a system that historically is all about the team’s efficiency.

 

[my2cents]

As a UCONN fan, the BY is our discussion board and I guess we can discuss what we want.
Both Paige and Caitlin are great players and comparisons can be fun but there will never be a consensus on who is better.
I do wish that Geno would open up his offense more to allow Paige more freedom to make one on one plays. ( a la Iowa). Paige is currently (hope it improves) surrounded by players shooting in the 20%+ range. Very hard to get assists with that poor shooting.
These players shooting poorly, barely get covered on the 3 point line making the lane clogged for any Bueckers penetration.
My rule for Paige would be, 20 shots per game, 6 threes, and 6 foul shots....

 

[Fairfield Fan]

That's for sure.


Why do we really need to care what Caitlin Clark does? She's a great player, that's a given. But, she doesn't play for UConn.

Clark is breathtaking. I haven't seen a player like her since Pistol Pete Maravich when he played in college. Just draw-dropping pure ability. We shouldn't compare 3-point efficiency between the two, because Clark is often shooting from WAY OUTSIDE!!! Missile range! Never seen that before.

 

[HuskyNan]

Clark is breathtaking. I haven't seen a player like her since Pistol Pete Maravich when he played in college.

Sabrina says hi.

 

[Gordo]

Clark is breathtaking. I haven't seen a player like her since Pistol Pete Maravich when he played in college. Just draw-dropping pure ability. We shouldn't compare 3-point efficiency between the two, because Clark is often shooting from WAY OUTSIDE!!! Missile range! Never seen that before.

I don't know why you chose me to reply to (?), but I definitely agree that she reminds of Pistol Pete. He was incredible, and so exciting to watch.

 

[Bjbod]

We're off in non sequitur territory, but I suppose you think the SEC is the bee's knees and that Clark would've had a much harder time in Bee's Knees Land.

To test this hypothesis, let's examine how Clark fared against SEC teams in last season's NCAA tournament (note that this sample is skewed since it only comes from the upper half of the SEC):

vs Georgia: 22 points, 12 assists.
vs South Carolina: 41 points, 8 assists.
vs LSU: 30 points, 8 assists.
Average vs SEC teams in the NCAA tournament: 31.0 points, 9.3 assists.

Quelle surprise ! Both stats were above her season averages. Looks like the SEC's upper crust is the real "cakewalk" as far as Caitlin Clark is concerned.

Well done! You never want to let a good story get in the way of cold, hard facts.

 

[JoePgh]

Sabrina says hi.

I believe that there is some chick from Chino, California who might also like to enter the conversation.

 

[HuskyNan]

I believe that there is some chick from Chino, California who might also like to enter the conversation.

Kelsey Plum deserves a mention, too

 

[cancontent]

Clark has a higher assist ratings than Paige as well as rebounding. Not sure, someone (Clark) who has been at or near the top in assists throughout her career should just be considered a me first shooter.

It's a easy narrative that's easy for some to use. And when I say "easy", I mean in general and not by posters on either WBB board here in the Boneyard.

I've heard the same from several of my friends who are casual WBB fans. Those who look at the stats see a different picture. I could have funded a vacation to Turks and Caicos on the number of "Oh, I didn't realize", I've heard when pointing the assists out to them.

Not to mention, what does the media talk about when it comes to Clark? Her shooting, especially because of her range and the ratings they get from it. They don't do enough to cover what else she can do as they could be. Heck, they do a disservice to a lot of great players by focusing on the easy stuff instead doing a deeper dive.