Mikayla Blakes has been named the SEC Freshman of the Year, the league announced on March 4. She was also named to the All-SEC First Team. The first-year averaged 23.3 points per game in 2024-25, which ranks No. 1 among all first-years, No. 2 in the SEC and No. 6 in Division I. She also produced 3.1 assists and 2.5 steals per game, which ranked 20th and 5th in the conference, respectively.
2025 SEC Freshman of the Year
Mikayla Blakes, @VandyWBB #SECWBB pic.twitter.com/UHRwCZwpnt
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) March 4, 2025
Blakes was honored as the SEC Freshman of the Year after a record-breaking season that saw her eclipse the 50-point mark twice in the span of three weeks. The New Jersey native poured in a Vanderbilt and SEC-record 53 points against Florida on Jan. 30 and followed it up by breaking her own record with 55 points on the road against Auburn. Her performance against the Tigers also broke the NCAA freshman scoring record.
Beyond that, though, Blakes eclipsed 25 points in 8 different contests this season, the most on Vanderbilt’s squad, and shot 46.4% from the field, 35% from 3-point range and 88.4% from the free throw line. Blakes broke Vanderbilt’s single-season first-year scoring record, pouring in 699 points across the team’s 30 games this season.
Blakes’ 26.9 points per game during SEC play led the league, and she scored more than 30 points in five different SEC games. She is Vanderbilt’s first SEC Freshman of the Year since Donna Harris won the 1989-90 season award and is just the third Commodore ever named winner of the award.
Blakes was named SEC Freshman of the Week seven times and AP Player of the Week twice, both of which are program records for the Black and Gold.
The superstar guard joins SEC Player of the Year Madison Booker, SEC Newcomer of the Year Georgia Amoore and a trio of LSU players in Mikaylah Williams, Flau’Jae Johnson and Aneesah Morrow, among others, on the All-SEC First Team. Blakes was also named to the All-SEC Freshman team.
She’ll look to build on the momentum as Vanderbilt travels to Greenville, South Carolina, to compete in the SEC Tournament. The 8-seeded Commodores will take on the winner of Tennessee and Texas A&M, with tipoff scheduled for March 6 at 10 a.m. CST.
