“Holy. Mikayla. Blakes.”
That was the first text I sent to my best friend after Mikayla Blakes broke the NCAA freshman single-game scoring record by putting up 53 points against Florida on Jan. 30. The first-year phenom had already etched herself into Vanderbilt history, and Blakes’ name is sure to stay — not that anyone had any doubt considering how she started her career.
A lot has been exceptional about this team recently. Besides setting records, Vanderbilt notched four wins in a row, besting then-No. 15 Tennessee (71-70), Arkansas (101-60), then-No. 19 Alabama (66-64) and Florida (99-86). The only sour spot of its most recent five-game slate was a 76-61 loss to Ole Miss.
Oh, and the program is ranked for the second week in a row.
It’s hard to believe that there was concern about this team in The Hustler’s last Memorial Minutes — the No. 24 ‘Dores have taken these concerns and squashed them. Head coach Shea Ralph and Co. have a lot to be proud of and are certainly getting closer to securing a bid to the Big Dance next month.
We don’t do orange.
It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ending: Blakes inbounded to Khamil Pierre with 4.9 seconds to go. Pierre misses the layup (here’s where you blink) and all of a sudden, Blakes is under the hoop and there to make the play. The tip-in sunk. The Lady Volunteers couldn’t make anything happen on the next play, and Vanderbilt sealed the deal.
Vanderbilt Women’s Basketball completed a weekend sweep of the Volunteers, besting Tennessee by just one point 24 hours after Mark Byington and Co. did so on the men’s side. To make it all the more storybook, the win was the 900th in program history.
So, what did Vanderbilt change to make this win happen? If the team learned anything from its loss to LSU, it was to box out properly — and it did. The Commodores didn’t trump Tennessee’s rebound numbers, but they cut their rebounding deficit from 20 at LSU to 2 against the Lady Volunteers.
Vanderbilt also kept the Volunteers cold from beyond the arc, holding Tennessee to 23.1% from deep — the third-lowest rate the ‘Dores have held a conference opponent to this season.
Iyana Moore had a day of her own, along with Blakes (23) and Pierre (21). The senior notched 17 points and shot 7-of-16 from 2-point range. The three combined for 61 of Vanderbilt’s 71 points.
Scoring, scoring and more scoring
It’s hard to write this article without talking about Blakes’ scoring record over and over again.
53 points. In one game. Blakes is, for lack of a better term, “her.”
That game marked the only one out of the last five that the “dynamic duo” of Blakes and Pierre didn’t both end up scoring double-digits. Pierre went 1-of-10 for just 3 points in Gainesville, swishing just one shot from deep early in the contest. While she didn’t score many points, she made up for it on the glass, grabbing 11 boards on the day.
If you want to keep talking about how this team can score, there’s another elephant in the room: a 41-point slaughtering of the Arkansas Razorbacks. Five Commodores had double-digit evenings: Blakes (24), Pierre (20), Moore (18), Juice Nwaba (13) and Madison Greene (10). The ‘Dores went a combined 52.0% from 3-point range (13-of-25) and held the Razorbacks to a meager 33.3% in comparison. In all five games, they held their opponents to 33.3% or less from beyond the arc; during their three-game losing streak, those percentages were 48.4%, 40.9% and 33.3%. The Black and Gold were able to lock in and lock up those shot attempts from deep.
Then, of course, there’s the road upset of then-No. 19 Alabama. On paper, it doesn’t look like a dominant win scoring-wise, but it’s how Vanderbilt scored that really counts: off of turnovers.
The ‘Dores scored twice as many points off turnovers as the Crimson Tide (30-15). To boot, they outrebounded their opponents 39-36 — on the offensive glass that number went up to 20-7. Vanderbilt didn’t just grab the boards in Tuscaloosa; it perfected the art of the steal-and-score. Those transition buckets made all of the difference down the stretch, particularly as Blakes took over en route to a 33-point performance.
The Achilles heel
This team’s Achilles heel? Ole Miss. Despite the Black and Gold’s four-game winning streak, the Rebels bested them in Memorial Gymnasium and swept the Commodores on the season.
Vanderbilt had trouble matching Ole Miss in any aspect of the game in the team’s most recent matchup. It committed more turnovers — which led to giving up 21 points for the Rebels — and was outrebounded 32-23. Ole Miss’ size was a problem for Ralph’s smaller team and it consistently dominated in the paint, getting 64 of its 71 points from inside the arc. Forward Starr Jacobs went for 24 points (12-of-13 shooting) and 10 rebounds.
Despite the tally in the loss column, the Commodores improved in their second meeting with the Rebels. Ole Miss’ 3-point percentage dropped from 40.9% in Oxford to 16.7%. Ralph also used 6’4 Justine Pissott in more minutes; the junior shared more playing time off the bench with Leilani Kapinus, Greene and Aiyana Mitchell than she has in the past.
Since size hasn’t necessarily been an advantage on Vanderbilt’s side, any visible development from Pissott (6’4) and Mitchell (6’4) is something to watch out for. Pierre has done an admiral job on the boards this year but has the frame of a power forward more than a center, and the longer, athletic SEC teams like LSU, Kentucky and Ole Miss (twice) have exposed Vanderbilt’s small-ball lineups.
Despite the Ole Miss losses representing blemishes on the record, the Commodores have certainly made a name for themselves through nine games of SEC play. From getting ranked for the first time in over a decade to Blakes’ scoring record, the program seems to be heading in a very promising direction — and, luckily, there are no more Rebels to face in the regular season.
Vanderbilt Women’s Basketball has the chance to bring some Memorial Magic on the road as it travels to No. 4 Texas on Feb. 6 at 8 p.m. CST.
