NASHVILLE, Tenn. — If you went by Mikayla Blakes’ reactions to plays Monday night at Memorial Gym, the Vanderbilt sophomore guard had a rough one. Her unrelenting focus on every second of the game broke only for the occasional scowl when a shot that normally falls didn’t, or a shake of the head when she dribbled one off her foot.
The actual Blakes results said something else: 25 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists — a couple of missed layups by teammates away from a triple-double — in a 75-57 win over Illinois to deliver Vanderbilt’s first Sweet 16 since 2009. And the performance exceeded the results. On what an outsider might call a pretty good night for her.
The shots weren’t falling early, but with Blakes, it’s better to start questions with “when” than “if.” When will she figure out this opponent’s defensive game plan designed solely to slow her down? When will she take over this game? When will she lead Vanderbilt to heights it hasn’t reached in nearly two decades? When will she win national player of the year? When will she be recognized as one of the top handful or so of players in the world?
It’s all here or coming soon. A national championship for Vanderbilt may be as well, though USBWA National Coach of the Year Shea Ralph probably needs to get Blakes a bit more help to pull that off. The Fort Worth 1 Region No. 2 seed Commodores (29-4) are looking at a UConn road block on the way to this year’s Final Four.
It’s hard to imagine Ralph and this team getting past her college coach and mentor, Geno Auriemma, just as it seems inevitable that UConn senior forward Sarah Strong will edge out Blakes for the national player of the year awards. But Vanderbilt’s time is coming, asterisk included because roster unpredictability makes it dicey to project anything with certainty in college basketball.
Blakes’ time is coming, too. No asterisk required. In this best school year ever for Vanderbilt athletics, sparked by diminutive stars — senior quarterback Diego Pavia, men’s basketball sophomore guard Tyler Tanner and Blakes, a 5-8 sophomore — she is the one who was able to bring her team to the biggest stage of the three.
She’s the one who is most likely to be on her sport’s biggest stages regularly in the next 10 to 15 years. She’s the SEC Player of the Year, the nation’s leading scorer (27.1 points per game entering Monday) and the ninth player to reach 1,000 points in 42 games or fewer in the NCAA era (since 1981-82). She’s now just 24 points from breaking the single-season SEC scoring record of 915, set by Tennessee great Chamique Holdslaw in the 1997-98 season.
And these numbers tell a slice of her greatness. Blakes, of Somerset, N.J., the daughter of a former Division II basketball star and sister of former Duke and Stanford guard Jaylen Blakes, is proficient at everything. She attacks every aspect of the game surgically — which, given the honor student’s pre-med course of study, tracks. Her quickness and skill are enough for stardom in this game, but her mindset can make those traits overwhelming.
Ralph, whose success in landing Blakes over all the usual suspects changed Vanderbilt’s trajectory, calls Blakes a “generational player” who will “absolutely rip your heart out of your chest” on the court even though she’s the “nicest kid on the planet.” Illinois coach Shauna Green compared her to Steph Curry before trying to deal with her.
Afterward?
“She’s one of the best players in the country, and she can do everything,” Green said.
“I say it every day, she’s an MFer,” Green said. “So when it was time for us to separate, did she miss any shots? No. She made the toughest ones.”
Blakes called game in the third quarter during a three-minute stretch in which she nailed two 3-pointers and a mid-range jumper, and also found freshman phenom Aubrey Galvan and senior Justine Pissott for triples. That’s a 14-4 run for a 60-41 lead, all 14 points created by Blakes.
Yet her most spectacular sequence came in the first half when she stepped in front of Illinois’ Destiny Jackson under the basket and absorbed a crunching hit for a charge, then dropped Jackson to the floor with a sharp jab and stepback, into a 3-point swish. On a 10-for-22 shooting night, she compensated in other areas. All other areas.
“She isn’t just a person that can put the ball in the basket,” said Pissott, who scored 18.
Blakes’ 10th assist came after the game, reaching over to wipe tears from the eyes of Pissott. A question for both players about the effectiveness of Ralph as a coach turned into lengthy, heartfelt responses. And visible emotion from Blakes, Ralph and athletic director Candice Lee sitting in the audience as well.
“She’s changed my life,” Pissott said of Ralph.
“This past year I did struggle a little bit, just feeling I didn’t have a break,” Blakes said of Ralph. “She’s the first person to reach out to me. She knows. She goes, ‘I know you’re not going to tell me, but I see you’re struggling. What can I do to help you? We’re going to find joy in your life.’ She found joy in my life.
“I feel like this year she brought joy back to basketball for me. It was something I was struggling with a lot, but I couldn’t ask for a better head coach, better mentor, better role model. This is a human being you want in your life, and she’s like a second mother figure to me, which is why my mom was 100 percent full ride. Like, let’s go to Vanderbilt.”
Blakes didn’t have much to say about the Sweet 16, other than she expects “to continue to do it, not just stop here, but for the upcoming years as well, be able to compete for championships.”
Watch her play. Watch the people in this program when they’re around each other. Ask when, not if, these things happen at Vanderbilt.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Vanderbilt Commodores, Illinois Fighting Illini, Women’s College Basketball, Women’s NCAA Tournament
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