Vanderbilt women’s basketball will start its March Madness run this weekend, with No. 15 High Point coming to Memorial Gymnasium.
The Commodores (27-4) have built from being in the First Four two years ago to a 7-seed and now a 2-seed playing home games. They are undefeated at home this season for the first time in program history, making it a favorable draw to get to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2009.
If they do advance there, they could face No. 3 seed Ohio State or No. 6 Notre Dame in Fort Worth, Texas, with a potential matchup with No. 1 seed UConn looming if they reach the Elite Eight.
Vanderbilt will start play against High Point (27-5) on March 21 at 6 p.m. CT on ESPNews.
Here’s how far the Commodores could go:
Mikayla Blakes vs. UConn’s Sarah Strong has been a heated National Player of the Year debate. Blakes is the nation’s leading scorer with 27.0 points per game. Strong averages just 18.7 points per game, but she also averages 7.7 rebounds and four assists.
The two players are hard to compare directly because they don’t play the same position. Blakes is a combo guard and Strong is a forward. On top of that, they are asked to do different things in a game. Blakes commonly plays 40 minutes and is asked to do it all, while Strong is able to play fewer minutes with an easier schedule.
Were Blakes and Strong to face off in a game, they almost certainly would not be each other’s primary defender. But what better case could Blakes make for her National Player of the Year case than to face off with Strong and have a superior game?
Vanderbilt isn’t just battle-tested, it has proved its ability to beat top-tier teams. The Commodores beat one of the tournament’s No. 1 seeds in Texas and also beat fellow 2-seeds LSU and Michigan and 4-seed Oklahoma.
UConn has several good wins of its own. The Huskies also beat Michigan, along with 2-seed Iowa, 3-seed Ohio State and 3-seed Louisville. But all of those games were before January.
Yes, Vanderbilt has been a bit less consistent than UConn, losing games to Georgia and Ole Miss (twice). But the Commodores have also proven they can beat top teams, and that’s what matters most in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.
As the defending national champion, UConn knows how to get through a gauntlet. There’s nothing quite like the grind of March Madness where you have to prep for a different opponent on as little as a day’s notice.
Vanderbilt has one player who has been to the Final Four: Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda, who was at Texas last season. But the Huskies are chock-full of those sorts of players, and the Commodores’ best players, Blakes and Aubrey Galvan, haven’t won a game in March Madness yet.
Vanderbilt is unique among highly seeded teams in how much it asks Blakes and Galvan to play. The two guards often play all 40 minutes, and while they’ve proven to have good stamina, it could be a different story when they are playing on only one day’s rest.
In the Commodores’ loss to Georgia, Galvan got in early foul trouble that limited her impact. If something similar were to happen in the tournament, Vanderbilt wouldn’t have as many bench options as other teams do.
Vanderbilt will win both games at Memorial Gymnasium and then defeat Ohio State in the Sweet 16, but the Commodores’ run will end in the Elite Eight with a loss to UConn.
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X @aria_gerson.
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