'Everybody needs to respect us': Inside the rise of Vanderbilt's Mikayla Blakes

THERE WAS A time when Mikayla Blakes, now an All-American guard for Vanderbilt, used to fall asleep in gyms. The backdrop to her early childhood was the annoying staccato of a dribbling basketball in central New Jersey. It was the rhythm of her older brother's practice, set by her father. Mikayla, still small enough to vanish inside an oversized hoodie, would often retreat from the incessant squeak of sneakers, and find a quiet corner where she could curl up and doze off until the workout was finally over.

Things have changed quite a bit for Blakes, who after an impressive freshman campaign, has rocketed into a bonafied star this season. The young girl who fell asleep in gyms now takes them over, and is leading a resurgent Commodores squad to new heights.

She is now firmly established in the family business, even if she did catch on late.

Her father, Monroe Blakes, was already an accomplished name, a Hall of Famer both at West Catholic High School in Philadelphia and at Saint Michael's College, a Division II school in Vermont. Her brother, Jaylen, 22, immediately followed that path, which led to a playing career that took him to Duke, Stanford, and then to pro ball in Israel. Yet, despite the legacy that surrounded Blakes, none of it made the sport feel like her own.

One reason was the all the practices and games she attended didn't feature any women players. Her earliest models for the sport were the guys who hooped with her dad, and her brother and his peers. "I would go to my brother's games, and I'd be like, 'This is a boy sport'," she says.

Blakes, now 20, had no interest in the family game despite what she and her parents describe as her easy athleticism. She began honing her footwork and coordination in competitive dancing as a toddler, where she won her share of medals but eventually lost interest. She then turned to track, becoming a nationally ranked 800-meter runner at 10 and 11 years old. But the appeal of logging laps faded by the time she was in middle school. "I was like, I want to do something instead of running in circles. Like, I want to do something with the running," Blakes recalls.

One turning point, she says, is when she met Diamond Miller, now 24, who lived nearby and would go on to star at Maryland and for the WNBA's Dallas Wings. She worked out with Miller a couple of times, which brought her an in-person example of the women's game.

"I wasn't fully educated at first," she explains. "But eventually it came about that I got to see other female hoopers, and especially Diamond."

"There was a couple of things I said to her. No. 1, you have to tell the track coaches that you're changing sports. We're not telling them," said her mother, Nikkia Miller-Blakes, an IT and telecommunications executive. "The second is that you have to tell us that you're playing basketball for you. Not because your father played. Not because your brother played."

Things did not start so smoothly when Blakes decided to make basketball her full-time sport as a middle schooler in Somerset, New Jersey. Part of the challenge was her lack of skill. She might have been a natural athlete, but she was not a natural baller.

"I was very uncoordinated at first," Blakes says. "Like, really bad."

Blakes struggled initially, losing the ball in traffic and missing easy jump shots. "I was very much like a perfectionist," Blakes says. "It would upset me when I missed the shot or turned the ball over. But I just worked on it."

Her tenacity soon bore fruit. Once she mastered the basics, her quick acceleration, stamina and competitive spirit set her apart.

"She had a passion to play," her father says. "And with that passion she began to develop her skill."

Blakes quickly transformed her middle school team into a competitive force, gaining not only victories but also a sense of camaraderie she had not felt in other sports. "With the other sports, I got a little burnt out," she admits. "But basketball was just joyful. I had a team behind me, and my coach made it fun."

Her parents supported that growing interest, ferrying her to youth tournaments and guiding her on the demanding AAU circuit, where her potential was immediately apparent.

"The first time I saw her play, she was in the eighth grade," recalled Kevin Lynch, founder and program director of Philly Rise, one of Blakes' AAU squads. "She wasn't at that point the most skilled player in the world, but you could see that she had that unmistakable demeanor of toughness and athleticism. Her potential was immediately clear, even without having a lot of experience at that point."

Lynch later brought Blakes into his program when she was 17. Her raw athleticism and defensive intensity separated her. "She was all arms and legs then," he says. "She got a ton of deflections. She was going a million miles an hour. Maybe she would lose the ball here and there, but she was outstanding."

Around the same time, Blakes began taking ownership of her development, working regularly with her brother Jaylen on shooting, conditioning and agility. "We just pushed each other really hard," Jaylen says. "We are two very competitive individuals who hate losing more than we enjoy winning." Jaylen, who played professionally for Hapoel Galil Elyon BC in Israel's top league, was sidelined earlier this season with a torn ACL.

As her growth accelerated, her parents decided to send her to Rutgers Preparatory School, a local powerhouse they believed would challenge her academically as much as athletically.

"We have a saying in our household," says Monroe Blakes, who works in marketing. "Be a good person. Be a good student. Be a good athlete. In that order. That's why we always put our children in situations that offered high academics and high athletics."

Most mornings at Rutgers Prep, Blakes and her father made the 10-minute drive so she could be in the gym by 6 a.m., getting up shots and otherwise working on her game. The discipline paid off. She led the team to a state championship as a sophomore and to runner-up finishes as a junior and senior.

"She had started late, but she learned how to play the right way from the start," says Mary Klinger, the longtime Rutgers Prep coach who first worked with Blakes in middle school AAU basketball. "She was a quick learner, and I think she's a perfectionist. She was going to make sure that she did things right."

Blakes averaged just over 20 points per game as a high school senior and never produced the 50-point outbursts she would later deliver at Vanderbilt, though Klinger said she rose when the moment demanded it. In a 2023 matchup against Hannah Hidalgo, another New Jersey high school standout and current Notre Dame star, Blakes scored 34 points, while Hidalgo finished with 29 in a tightly contested Rutgers Prep loss.

By the end of her high school career, the honors were flowing. She was named the state's Gatorade Player of the Year, earned spots in the McDonald's All American, Jordan Brand Classic and Nike Hoop Summit all-star games, and was ranked as the No. 8 recruit in the nation by ESPN.

"One thing I really respect about Mikayla," Klinger says, "is that the bigger the game, the better she was. People around here kid me. They say I am the only one who ever kept her under 30."

Coming out of high school, Blakes was recruited by several major programs across the country. Vanderbilt, which has invested more than $300 million since 2021 to upgrade its athletic facilities and performance, stood apart because it offered first-class resources and a warmth Blakes said she felt immediately.

"I feel like this was the perfect spot," she says.

Choosing Vanderbilt spoke to her competitive nature. A strong student with aspirations to play professionally and then perhaps work in medicine, she was interested in a university that could satisfy both her athletic and academic ambitions.

She also wanted to help build a champion from the ground up and was unmoved by the idea of joining perennial powerhouses such as South Carolina and UConn, both of which were engaged with her early in the recruiting process.

"Those are great programs, but for me I just want to be somewhere where I could build a legacy," Blakes says. "And I think we're on the cusp here."

Blakes averaged 23.3 points per game last season, making her the highest-scoring freshman in the country. During a transcendent late-season stretch, she scored 53 points in a win against Florida, setting the NCAA freshman single-game scoring record . Less than three weeks later, she raised the bar, pouring in 55 points in an overtime victory against Auburn.

Blakes was named Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Week seven times and became the first freshman since Tennessee's Candace Parker in 2006 to be voted the league's overall Player of the Week and Freshman of the Week at the same time. Following the season, she was honored as the U.S. Basketball Writers Association National Freshman of the Year and earned spots on several prominent All-American teams.

Her impact extended beyond college basketball. Last summer, playing alongside fellow All-Americans including Hildago, Iowa State's Audi Crooks and LSU's Flau'jae Johnson, Blakes led Team USA to a gold medal at the 2025 FIBA Women's AmeriCup in Santiago, Chile. She was named the tournament's MVP after scoring 27 points in the championship game against Brazil.

This season, Blakes is picking up where she left off. Through 19 games, she is averaging 25 points per contest, while shooting 46 percent from the field for the undefeated Commodores. In early December, she surpassed the 1,000-point career scoring mark, reaching that milestone faster than any player in program history.

Once a respected program that reached the Final Four in 1993 and made regular NCAA tournament appearances, Vanderbilt spent much of the past dozen years struggling to find footing in the unforgiving SEC.

Over the last two seasons the program has started to show signs of life, nudging its way back into the NCAA tournament. Though both stints were one-and-dones, there were hints that more was on the horizon. This season, the Commodores are off to the best start in their history, making it clear that it is a team no longer grasping for relevance. With Blakes as the team's hub, Vanderbilt has entered the chat, and the expectations are on the rise.

"Mikayla is a high-impact person; a difference-maker," says Candice Lee, Vanderbilt's athletic director. "She is the type of player that will send a signal to other people of her caliber that this is a destination for them."

The shift became impossible to ignore during an early January victory over then fifth-ranked LSU. "Everybody needs to respect us. We're here," Blakes said after the hard-fought game. The Tigers opened the fourth quarter by stretching their lead to seven points before Blakes imposed her will. She scored 15 of her game-high 32 points in the final period, hitting two threes, attacking the paint, drawing fouls and leading Vanderbilt to a comeback that felt like a reckoning.

The win was the program's first over a top five opponent since 2009, and Blakes saw it as an announcement. "I think a lot of people think of us as an academic school," she says. "But we're an athletic school as well. We're up there at the top of the top."

If we're talking about stardom, so is she.

By her own admission, Blakes is a low-key personality even if her breakout freshman season transformed her into one of the most recognizable athletes at Vanderbilt. "I love when people come up to me and they're like, 'Are you Mikayla?'" she says "Sometimes people will just stare at me. So, I sometimes I just go up to them and say hello to see what kind of impact I make."

Blakes likes to dabble in photography, using her Canon camera to shoot lifestyle and nature photos, or snapshots and portraits of her friends. When she can, she goes to the nearby Bridgestone Arena to catch hip-hop acts like Lil Baby. Around campus she is a regular at sporting events, and she enjoys hanging out with her teammates and friends.

"She's a goofball, just like a little kid," says Jordyn Oliver, a graduate student guard on last year's squad and now the team's director of player development. "She doesn't give superstar. If you walk past her, she's like 'Hey, how you're doing," and then she'll crack a joke on you."

Sacha Washington, a graduate student forward who is both a mentor and one of Blakes' closest friends on the team, joked that on the court she and Blakes seem to reverse roles. While playing, "She's always like leading me and telling me what I can do better," Washington says.

Oliver, 24, a 2019 McDonald's All American, who played at Baylor and Duke before finishing her collegiate career at Vanderbilt last season, said she had never seen a young player with more confidence.

Oliver said Blakes' ability was obvious from the first time the team played pickup the summer before her freshman season. Blakes was assertive without being abrasive and talked trash without crossing the line. Plus, she was a bucket.

Oliver said she called her father afterward to marvel at Blakes. "I was like, 'Dad, she's different,'" she said. "He was like 'Yeah, right'. But she was. She wasn't scared of us. She didn't come in timid. She came in like, 'I'm about to take us somewhere, and you all are going to follow me or go somewhere else'. Some people had to get used to it because she's very fiery, very competitive. She's not cocky, but she knows what she brings to the table."

In games, Blakes operates with little wasted motion and relentless energy. She pushes the ball hard in transition, scores off drives and pull-ups, and draws fouls at a high rate. Her style is not flashy. She rarely hunts logo threes or relies on elaborate moves to get her shot off.

She doesn't have to.

"Keeping it simple is my main thing," Blakes says. "Sometimes there is a need to do extra, but half the time it's just get to your spot and not allow people to knock you off your spot. I think that's a strength of mine. And also getting to the free throw line."

Her game is built on effort. On defense, she closes driving lanes and willingly sacrifices her body to take charges.

"We knew from early on that she'd be pretty special," says Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph, a former UConn star. "I think most of that was just her motor. Watching her play in high school and AAU, it wasn't like she was dominant all the time with points or assists. But she had a hand in every play because her motor was so high."

Blakes' efficient playing style can obscure her impact. During her record-setting performance against Auburn last February, when she scored 30 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, even some of her teammates were unaware of the magnitude of her outburst.

"I didn't know she had 55 points," Oliver says. "It's so natural. Everything she does is so within the game of basketball. It doesn't feel forced, so you don't realize how much she is scoring." Blakes pairs her talent with meticulous study of the game. She watches film closely, not only with her coaches but also with her father and brother. Blakes says she is more of a "downhill" player than her brother, looking to attack with speed and quickness. She goes to him for tips on how to better manipulate defenses and matchups.

"She'll ask me different things about how to attack a pick-and-roll coverage, or what I saw on a particular play," her brother says. "She's always trying to learn and get better."

After missing three of four free throws during an early-season blowout of Furman, she was in the gym with her father the next morning shooting foul shots hours before practice.

Later that afternoon at a 2.5-hour practice, Blakes was brimming with energy. She ran hard and hit the vast majority of her shots in drills and at the free throw line. The next night in a game against Austin Peay in nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, she went 8-for-11 from the line on her way to scoring 26 points in Vanderbilt's victory.

"She played like 38 minutes a game last season. We kind of just threw her into the fire," Ralph says. "She believed in herself and did the work to earn that belief. She is the hardest worker on the floor every single practice. She never loses a sprint. She was that kind of kid from the get-go."

In practice, Blakes carries herself with a quiet authority. She moves with purpose, sprinting through transitions, talking on defense, and she finishes reps as if someone were keeping score. Teammates notice. Coaches do, too.

"She has the hallmark characteristic of the greatest players I've ever coached or played with," says Ralph, who as a UConn assistant helped develop the likes of Breanna Stewart and Maya Moore. "As soon as they walk on the court, you're a better team. They just have this swagger that creates a belief."

For all the records and accolades she has already amassed, Blakes knows more challenges await. Vanderbilt's roster has shifted significantly, leaving her as the only remaining starter from last season. The second and third leading scorers from last year transferred, though Ralph believes her new recruits, including heralded freshman point guard Aubrey Galvan, are filling the gaps and allowing Blakes to play more off the ball. At the same time, the staff is asking her to grow into a more vocal leader. "

She's already a leader by example," Ralph says. "It's easy to follow her because she works so hard. As she becomes more comfortable using her voice, she will be able to impact the team at an even higher level."

The program is looking for a deeper NCAA tournament run, and Blakes welcomes the moment. She talks about her goals not in terms of repeating what came before, but in terms of staying connected to what first pulled her into basketball to begin with.

"I don't want to match last year," she says. "This is a new season. I'm in a different role. There are different teammates. They are capable of a lot. My thing is just bringing that energy, bringing that experience, and not letting my joy for the game get taken away."