NASHVILLE — Vanderbilt guard Mikayla Blakes likes being the first sophomore since South Carolina’s A’ja Wilson in 2016 to be honored as Southeastern Conference women’s basketball player of the year.
“She’s historic,” Blakes said Wednesday of Wilson, who was the AP female athlete of the year in 2025 and is a four-time WNBA MVP. “She’s killing the WNBA. She’s done college as well. Just to know I’m on a path of a GOAT (greatest of all time), it’s insane.”
Wilson helped lead the Gamecocks to the 2017 NCAA Division I tournament title as a junior and was the AP women’s college basketball player of the year as a senior. Wilson helped set a bar that Blakes certainly hopes to meet, especially if it means getting the Commodores where she wants as a perennial national championship contender.
Blakes sees being SEC player of the year as an offshoot of helping Vanderbilt win, and the sixth-ranked Commodores (27-4) have done just that in setting a program record for single-season victories before the NCAA tournament.
“This was my goal,” Blakes said. “Like I want to be able to bring the program back to competing for Final Four (appearances), back to people looking at Vanderbilt, be like, ‘OK.”