Vanderbilt women’s basketball guard Mikayla Blakes and coach Shea Ralph each added an award on May 6 when Blakes was named player of the year and Ralph coach of the year by the Tennessee Sports Writers Association.
The announcement came a day after Vanderbilt men’s basketball guard Tyler Tanner and coach Mark Byington earned the same honors and two days after Diego Pavia and Clark Lea received the football player and coach awards for a Vanderbilt sweep of the TSWA’s college awards.
Blakes, a sophomore, led the nation in scoring with 27 points per game, to go along with 4.5 assists and 2.9 steals. The 918 points she scored broke single-season SEC and program records.
She was named a first-team All-American by the Associated Press, Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, U.S. Basketball Writers Association, The Athletic, USA Today, ESPN and The Sporting News. She also was named SEC Player of the Year and First-Team All-SEC by the league’s coaches and USA Today in addition to being a finalist for national player of the year.
Ralph, who was named the Naismith women’s college coach of the year in her fifth season, led the Commodores to 29-5 overall record (third-most wins in program history), including a program-best 13-3 in the SEC, which turned out to be the most successful regular season in program history.
Vandy also made it to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 17 seasons after earning a No. 2 seed, which resulted in the team playing host to NCAA Tournament games for the first time in 14 years.
Vanderbilt began the season 20-0, a program record, and finished 18-0 at home, earning the first undefeated home record in program history. They also defeated seven ranked teams.
The Commodores also ranked in the top five in both the AP poll and the USA Today/WBCA Coaches Poll for the first time since 2001-02, spending five weeks there. They also were ranked in the top 10 in both polls for 12 weeks in a row.
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina.
