Mikayla Blakes is undoubtedly the soul of the Commodores, elevating the team’s performance with her electric gameplay. Placed in a conference where she has to swim with sharks on a daily basis, Blakes is not just surviving but taming her rivals with her dominance. In the process, she ended a 26-year wait by setting up a rare SEC record this millennium.

After her recent win over Tennessee, Mikayla became the first SEC player this century to average 30 ppg in conference play. For the past 26 years, this has never happened, and now that curse has finally been broken. Mikayla Blakes has found a way to annihilate every team that has dared to come her way, and she did it in style: Tennessee (34 points), Alabama (35 points), Kentucky (35 points), the list just keeps on going.

She is single-handedly stealing games from the hands of the opposition. Just look at the Feb. 5th game against Kentucky. She sank critical shots in the final minutes to secure a one-point road victory, showing her ability to deliver under maximum pressure. Blakes also did the same against the Texas Longhorns, where she scored 34 points with efficient shooting (47.4% FG, 86.7% FT). It was her desire to push that broke open the game and gave Vanderbilt a statement victory.

If you don’t want to go that far, take their last game against Tennessee as a reference. Her scoring burst flipped the momentum and effectively sealed the road win against a very game Tennessee. This is exactly why she has now displaced Audi Crooks in the NCAA rankings and taken up the No. 1 slot.

For her sake and the team’s sake, Mikayla Blakes should hope that this hot streak never dips, as tough opponents lie ahead in their SEC journey.

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Vanderbilt and Texas To Fight For No. 1 Seed In SEC Tournament

Despite Vanderbilt’s success in the regular conference so far, the Longhorns have managed to surpass them in the selection committee’s top 16 reveal on Sunday, and that means a classic semifinal against the Commodores could very well be in the making.

Now, if we were to put these two teams side by side, we would notice that even though these two teams look evenly matched on paper, Vanderbilt has the bragging rights as they beat them head-to-head.

Texas should, however, find solace in the fact that it has some great nonconference wins under its belt this season. They secured a victory over South Carolina in the SEC, and they are the only team so far who have managed to get the better of UCLA.

So we have got a game on our hands where anything can happen. The Longhorns have been defensively solid with a drtg of 75.7 (3rd nationally), and as such, their perimeter will be hard to breach. But fortunately for Vanderbilt, they have Mikayla Blakes in their ranks, who has already troubled them once.

Vic Schaefer already knows what he is up against, and you can rest assured he will come prepared to make the Commodores’ task that much more difficult.