Vanderbilt Commodores

Vanderbilt's Mikayla Blakes Continues to Score with USBWA Award

The Commodores' freshman phenom already has a trophy case full of awards and honors for the 2024-25 season, but will have to make room for another.
Taylor Hodges|
Vanderbilt guard Mikayla Blakes (1) celebrates after defeating Tennessee at Memorial Gym in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025.
Vanderbilt guard Mikayla Blakes (1) celebrates after defeating Tennessee at Memorial Gym in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. | Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Mikayla Blakes may not be able to score any more baskets, but she’s still scoring. The Vanderbilt freshman postseason awards continued to grow with, arguably, Blakes’ biggest award yet.

Blakes was named the 2024-25 Tamika Catchings National Freshman of the Year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA). She’s the first Vanderbilt player to win the awards and first Commodore to win a USBWA award since Jennifer Risper was the USBWA National Defensive Player of the Year in 2008-09.

Additionally, Blakes was named to six different All-American teams, was named the SEC Newcomer of the Year by USA Today and the 2024-25 SEC Freshman of the Year by the conference’s coaches. Blakes was named All-SEC first team by both the coaches and USA Today.

It’s a lot of postseason accolades, but they were well-earned.

The Somerset, New Jersey-native averaged 23.3 points, 3.2 assists and 2.4 steals per game, while shooting 45.6 percent from the field and 34.2 from beyond the three-point line. She scored 20 points or more 21 times, including a 53-point showing against Florida that set the SEC single-game and NCAA true freshman scoring records that she broke a couple weeks later with 55 points against Auburn. Blakes is the only men or women’s basketball player to score 50 or more points this season.

Her 23.3 ppg was the eight-best scoring average amongst all players and ranked in the top 20 in six other categories. In SEC play, Blakes averaged 26.9 ppg which led the conference and scored 30 or more points in five SEC games.

Blakes ended the 2024-25 season with 769 points scored in 33 games, which set a new Vanderbilt freshman record and is the second most in school history. Only Chantelle Anderson’s 765 points scored in the 2001-02 season tops what Blakes did.

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Taylor Hodges
TAYLOR HODGES

Award-winning sports editor, writer, columnist, and photographer with 15 years’ experience offering his opinion and insight about the sports world in Mississippi and Texas, but he was taken to Razorback pep rallies at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth before he could walk. Taylor has covered all levels of sports, from small high schools in the Mississippi Delta to NFL games. Follow Taylor on Twitter and Facebook.

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