NASHVILLE — Vanderbilt freshman Mikayla Blakes knows each time she drops the ball in the basket, it will bring more attention.
That’s what happens when a player erupts for 53 points, then sets the freshman single-game scoring record for NCAA Division I women with 55 just 17 days later.
“Everybody wants to stop you now,” Blakes said about being a bigger target for opponent’s scouting plans when facing the Commodores (19-9, 6-8 Southeastern Conference). “So I think just continuing to keep going and continue to keep working on my weaknesses and turn them into strengths is definitely going to help me.”
Blakes has scored at least 30 points in five games, tied for fourth most among NCAA D-I women’s basketball players this season and the most among freshmen. Her scoring average of 23.3 points per game ranks second in the SEC.
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, whose SEC program has won two of the past three NCAA titles and is ranked sixth in this week’s AP Top 25, called Blakes special after her the Gamecocks held the 5-foot-8 guard to 19 points last weekend. Blakes got only two points in the fourth quarter as the Gamecocks made Blakes work hard on both ends of the court in South Carolina’s 82-54 victory in Nashville.
“To come in our league and to have done what she’s done, I don’t know if there’s a bigger offensive impact,” Staley said. “I mean, she’s very, very efficient.”
Blakes already is in exclusive company.
Her 55-point game, which came in Vanderbilt’s 98-88 overtime victory at Auburn on Feb. 16, ranks ninth overall in NCAA D-I women’s basketball history. She also joined Patricia Hoskins of Mississippi Valley State as the only players to score 53 or more points twice in the same season; Blakes scored 53 on Jan. 30 as the Commodores won 99-86 at Florida.
With Vanderbilt trailing by 15 with 6:55 left in the fourth quarter at Auburn, even her brother Jaylen, who was watching the telecast, thought that game was over. And then Blakes took over, scoring 30 of her 55 points over the final 10 minutes, 25 seconds of regulation and overtime in the victory.
Blakes was 23-of-24 at foul line that day, when she knocked down down her first 23 free throws. That helped send Blakes on her way to breaking a record set by Elena Delle Donne, who scored 54 points as a redshirt freshman at Delaware in a loss to James Madison on Feb. 18, 2010.
It’s not just about the points for Blakes, though. Her brother knows only too well the sister he worked out with and played 1-on-1 basketball against couldn’t let the Commodores lose.
“She hates losing,” Jaylen said. “At the end of the day, she hates losing more than she loves winning, and for her, that was the most important thing, I think. Obviously the 55 was great, but she was so happy about just winning that game.”
Tara VanDerveer, who tried to get Blakes to play at Stanford, had high praise: “She’s fantastic. She’s a star. She’s awesome.”
A member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, VanDerveer retired after last season, but the former coach called it disappointing not to get the 2024 McDonald’s All-American from Somerset, New Jersey. VanDerveer said she’s mad that Jaylen came to Stanford as a graduate transfer this season from Duke and didn’t bring his sister with him.
Joking aside, VanDerveer said she loves the Blakes family and called Mikayla a great student for whom she is really happy.
“She’s doing really well,” VanDerveer said.
It seemed everybody wanted Blakes. Along with VanDerveer’s Cardinal and eight-time NCAA champion Tennessee, the teams recruiting her out of high school included Indiana, Rutgers, UCLA and Wisconsin.
Shea Ralph, a former star player for 11-time NCAA champion Connecticut, convinced Blakes to become her highest-rated recruit yet for the coach’s fourth season at Vanderbilt.
Jaylen, who joined the family on some Zoom calls as coaches pitched away, knows why Mikayla chose a program with only one Final Four berth way back in 1993 but now is on the verge of a second straight NCAA tournament berth after a 10-year drought: “She was just about building something.”
Thanks to Stanford’s men playing on Wednesdays and Saturdays in Big Ten competition and the Vanderbilt women on Thursdays and Sundays in their SEC schedule, the Blakes siblings are able to keep up with each other’s games.
In that comeback against Auburn, Blakes joined LeBron James as the only basketball players to score 55 or more points playing every second of a game since 2005, whether in the NBA, the WNBA or the NCAA (men or women).
She was also honored as the SEC player and freshman of the week for women’s basketball, something not done in the league since Tennessee star Candace Parker was so honored in 2006.
Ralph said while her young standout has not been a secret for a long time now, she liked how Blakes played against South Carolina. Ralph is focused on making sure Blakes doesn’t have to score 50 for Vanderbilt to come out on top when the Commodores host Texas A&M (10-16, 3-11) on Thursday night in their final home game of the regular season.
“She’s done it in moments where we’ve really needed it,” Ralph said. “But she also has to get a little bit of help.”