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WNBA Prospect Mikayla Blakes Fills Stat Sheet in Vanderbilt Opener
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- WNBA Prospect Mikayla Blakes Fills Stat Sheet in Vanderbilt Opener
(DENNY SIMMONS / THE TENNESSEAN)
Mikayla Blakes scored 27 points with 9 rebounds and 6 assists Monday as No. 8 Vanderbilt beat Lipscomb 112-53 in its season opener at Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville.
She added 4 steals and 2 blocks.
Five Commodores finished in double figures. Madison Greene scored 19 points, Aubrey Galvan had 16 points and 11 assists, Mia Woolfolk added 15, and Aiyana Mitchell scored 10.
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Two of Blakes' points came off an administrative technical foul assessed to Lipscomb, The Tennessean's Aria Gerson reported . Blakes made both free throws, which capped a 9-0 run and put Vanderbilt ahead 13-2. Under NCAA rules, an administrative technical does not count toward team fouls or toward any player's foul total.
Blakes did not attend the postgame news conference. Commodores coach Shea Ralph appeared with Woolfolk and Greene.
A Different Role in Year 3
Ralph went to the transfer portal for more rebounding and scoring this offseason. Woolfolk transferred from Georgia, where she averaged a career-best 13.9 points and led the Bulldogs with 5.4 rebounds per game as a sophomore. Vernell Atamah arrived from Northwestern State after being named Southland Conference player of the year, when she led the league at 19.2 points per game.
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Five-star freshman Olivia Jones, ranked 14th nationally by ESPN, joined them. Jones and Blakes are the only five-star recruits to sign with Vanderbilt out of high school.
Blakes told The Associated Press in October that she wants to keep reading defenses as more of Vanderbilt's scoring spreads to her teammates.
"My role is going to change," Blakes said. "We have a lot of good scorers this year and really a lot of good players. So I feel like doing whatever the team needs me to do and continue to read defenses really well."
Ralph has spent the preseason moving players around to free Blakes to use every part of her game.
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"So that she becomes unguardable in every way," Ralph said.
What Blakes Did as a Sophomore
Blakes led Division I in scoring last season at 27 points per game. In SEC play, she averaged 30.5.
She was named SEC player of the year after winning SEC freshman of the year the season before, and she is the conference's preseason player of the year this fall. She is the 13th player in league history to win both awards. A'ja Wilson, now a five-time WNBA MVP, was the last to win them in consecutive seasons before Blakes.
As a freshman, Blakes scored 55 points in an overtime win over Auburn, a Division I freshman single-game record. That came 17 days after she scored 53 in another game.
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Vanderbilt went 29-5 last season and reached the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2008-09. In the second round, Blakes had 25 points, 10 rebounds, and 9 assists in a win over Illinois at Memorial Gym on March 23. The Commodores lost to Notre Dame in the Sweet 16 on March 27 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
Ralph said after the Illinois game that it might have been her fault Blakes did not get a 10th assist.
"She's a really good basketball player, and I think right now the narrative is that she's a great scorer," Ralph explained.
Ralph is the reigning AP coach of the year and is in her sixth season at Vanderbilt. Before arriving in Nashville, she won a national title as a player at UConn and six more as an assistant coach there.
Lipscomb fell to 0-1 and plays at Butler on Thursday.
Vanderbilt hosts Queens on Wednesday.
