DURHAM, N.C. — After the first day of workouts for the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team last summer, Jordyn Oliver had to call her dad and tell him about a new teammate.
There was just something about Mikayla Blakes that was different.
“She came in day one cooking,” Oliver said. “She’s a hooper, a dawg.”
Blakes has proven to be anything but an ordinary first-year college player for the Commodores (22-10), who are the No. 7 seed in the NCAA Division I tournament’s Birmingham 2 Region and open against No. 10 seed Oregon (19-11) of the Big Ten on Friday at Duke University.
Blakes ranks eighth in the nation with her scoring average of 23.2 points per game, but she isn’t the only stellar youngster at this site for the opening weekend of March Madness. While the Commodores standout was voted the Southeastern Conference’s freshman of the year, Duke forward Toby Fournier was honored as the Atlantic Coast Conference’s rookie of the year.
The Blue Devils (26-7), who won the ACC tournament, are seeded second and will face No. 15 Lehigh (27-6), the Patriot League champion.
Fournier, a 6-foot-2 forward from Toronto, gained attention before stepping on Duke’s campus for dunking videos that went viral. She has yet to throw down a slam this season for the Blue Devils but leads them in scoring at 13.4 points per game, doing so while averaging just 19.9 minutes per game. A better assessment of her impact is that she averages 27.0 points per 40 minutes, which ranks 14th nationally.
Blakes grabbed the spotlight this season with awesome offensive performances. The 5-8 guard from New Jersey piled up 53 points in a Jan. 30 win at Florida, then poured in 55 in a Feb. 16 victory at Auburn.
Not only did Blakes set the NCAA single-game points record for a freshman — surpassing Elena Delle Donne, who scored 54 as a redshirt freshman at Delaware in a loss to James Madison on Feb. 18, 2010 — she joined Patricia Hoskins, who played at Mississippi Valley State from 1986-89, as the only players in D-I women’s basketball history to score 53 points or more twice in a season.
“I think she’s a great player and a great competitor,” Fournier said of Blakes, adding that the two played against each other at youth camps and tournaments.
Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph knew Blakes had the potential to be special when she was recruiting her.
“We recognized her level of play, her confidence and competitiveness, her will to win,” Ralph said. “She has elevated our standard.”
Meanwhile, Oregon and Vanderbilt have found success in different ways. The Commodores like to play an up-tempo game and take a lot of shots. They’re seventh in the nation in scoring with 83.6 points per game.
The Ducks like to muck up contests and lean on defense. They’re outside of the top 250 teams in 3-pointers attempted this season but are 33rd nationally in defensive rating.
“It’s a contrast of styles,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said. “We want to grind it out. They want to get out and go. If we have to get out and go with them, we’re in trouble.”