What does one have to do with the other?
In any case Martin has come a long way but she didn’t rly show up til her senior year. Even through most of her junior year she was often completely and inexplicably absent from the stat pad. I recall game after game with zero points. She was a SF who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) take it to the hoop. I love her for sure and I’m never nervous when she has the ball but to pretend she is irreplaceable is just not accurate. She will be missed on multiple levels but she’s not an all American.
Syd, Kylie and maybe even Jada all likely have higher ceilings than Kate at the 3. Again I love Kate and I believe in her when she’s on the court but it took her til her 5th year to get where she is — and she is still somewhat turnover prone and limited in certain respects by a lack of athleticism.
At the 2, McCabe is a much better shooter than Gabbie. She doesn’t play D as well…but Kylie does (even if her 3 hasn’t been falling). Kylie is likely the quickest person on the team not named Clark or Stuelke. And then of course Stuelke will be back next year and I believe she can average 20ish pts per game. She is already basically as efficient as Czinano (63% vs 66%)…and she isn’t nearly as vulnerable to being neutered by more athletic kids, as Czinano (rather frequently) was.
I get that people are nervous about losing Kate/Gabbie but everyone was nervous about losing Mon/McKenna last year and it’s mostly been fine (which I always believed it would be). If Clark were to come back she would continue to have talent around her, not to mention a fast new post (#4 C in her class) whom I believe can be as productive as any of our veteran posts.
Without Clark, Iowa will certainly take a step back, largely bc we’ll be leaning on freshmen to play PG. Hard to avoid when your floor general goes from NPOY to freshmen. Really a shame that Guyton’s first year will unavoidably be touch and go, if she plays at all. She certainly has the skills to be a star, but she will now be a year behind schedule….I’d guess next year will likely be a bit of a wash for us. Even if we can eke out a decent resume, we’ll be wondering how much better we’d be with Guyton on the floor / at full strength.
