Mikayla Blakes’ turnover in the final seconds of the 2026 Sweet 16 might haunt her for a long time. Aubrey Galvan’s game-tying 3-point miss will likely linger as well. But, as head coach Shea Ralph said in her postgame presser, the UConn team she played for lost in the Sweet 16 the year before winning a national championship.
It took UConn head coach Geno Auriemma 10 seasons to win his first national championship. It took South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley nine years to win hers. It took UCLA head coach Cori Close 14 seasons to even make it to a Final Four, which they did last season. WNBA star guard Caitlin Clark lost in the Round of 32 at home as a sophomore before making the Final Four in her junior and senior seasons. It took WNBA star guard Paige Bueckers five years to win a national title at UConn.
Building programs that are national contenders takes time, and Vanderbilt is on the right track.
When compared to its postseason expectations, it is easy to say that Vanderbilt underachieved. Based on the seed line alone, the Commodores should have made it to the Elite Eight. But do not think losing in the Sweet 16 means a failed season.
Think back to the preseason. Last spring, Iyana Moore, the team’s third-leading scorer at 12.4 points per game, entered the transfer portal in search of a new home. In late June, well after the transfer portal closed, it was announced that Khamil Pierre, the team’s second-leading scorer at 20.4 points and 9.6 rebounds per game, was also leaving the program. In early September, the program announced that guard Madison Greene, a key piece off the bench who averaged 6.8 points per game last season, would miss this season with a knee injury. Last summer, veteran guard Jada Brown lost her father, and it was unclear if she would come back. In the span of a few months, most of Vanderbilt’s veteran leadership was gone.
After losing in the Round of 64 in last year’s NCAA Tournament and then losing so much talent, the Commodores were projected to finish seventh in the SEC by the media poll and eighth by the coaches’ poll. This team drastically outperformed its preseason projections, finishing third in the SEC with a 13-3 conference record (most conference wins in program history), going undefeated at home for the first time in program history and picking up ranked wins over No. 5 LSU, No. 16 Kentucky (twice), No. 10 Oklahoma, No.12 Alabama and No. 4 Texas, as well as defeating rival Tennessee on the road in Knoxville.
Of course, Vanderbilt retained Blakes, one of the best players in the country. But she could not lead this team to become a title contender on her own. Ralph had to pull together a starting five with Blakes as the only returner. She brought back Sacha Washington, who missed all of last season with a blood clot and had to get back to playing SEC basketball at a high level. She developed Justine Pissott, who, despite starting her sophomore year, only saw 9.7 minutes per game last season. She taught Texas transfer Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda a new system. And, she trusted a freshman point guard in Galvan, who wasn’t even a top-100 recruit out of high school. Off the bench, Ralph utilized Aiyana Mitchell, who averaged 11.3 minutes per game last year, and Brown, who averaged 5.3 minutes per game, along with freshman Ava Black. Bringing this group together to perform at such a high level, while also building an outstanding culture that everyone buys into, is, to put it simply, a National Coach of the Year coaching job from Ralph.
Before Ralph came to Vanderbilt in 2021, the program had not been to the NCAA Tournament since 2014 despite having a head coach who has won a WNBA Championship as an assistant. Now, Ralph has led the ’Dores to three consecutive appearances on the dance floor. However, in their first two appearances, they failed to make it past the Round of 64 despite being the higher seed in 2025. This year, they finally broke through the first round and did even better — getting to the Sweet 16.
For a program as young as Ralph’s, getting her players experience playing in the later rounds of the NCAA Tournament pays dividends. Now, she will have multiple players on her roster who have been in that environment and know the stakes. If you don’t believe us, let’s think about the team that defeated Vanderbilt: Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish have been eliminated in four consecutive Sweet 16s before finally breaking through to the Elite Eight this year. Sometimes breaking through takes time, but for now, the ’Dores are showing they are capable of doing so.
Vanderbilt was situated perfectly for a deep post-season run, and this season was a clear indicator that the history written this year was not a one-off — it was a product of the talent, attitude and culture Ralph has instilled in the program during her tenure.
And the outlook for next year looks good — the Commodores will likely return the SEC Player and Offensive Player of the Year in Blakes and a budding star in Galvan, who was named SEC Freshman of the Year, to its backcourt. These two are some of the biggest names in college basketball, anchoring their team while contributing eye-opening numbers themselves. Blakes ended her season averaging 27 points per game while shooting 45.6% from the field and 35.1% from beyond the arc. Not only does she contribute offensively, but she has also solidified herself as one of the best defensive names in both the SEC and the nation, where she collected 98 steals this season. If those stats aren’t convincing enough, the sophomore has added Naismith Player of the Year Finalist to her resume, along with First Team SEC and SEC POTY honors, while also breaking the NCAA sophomore season scoring record and the Vanderbilt single-season scoring record.
Complimenting and creating space for Blakes is Galvan, a freshman. While she did not come to campus as a five-star recruit like Blakes, Galvan quickly showed the world why she should have been one with her play. From the very first minute of the season, she anchored Vanderbilt as its point guard; her tenacity, grittiness and can-do attitude separated her from her opponents — despite her small stature — and she really was the glue that held Vanderbilt together this season. Meanwhile, she averaged 13.5 points per game, shooting 42.2% from the field and 33% from the three, while tallying an astounding 193 assists and 89 steals on the season.
If the Commodores want to continue that upward trajectory, Ralph and Co. must find some big contributors in the portal to build around their stars. This statement comes especially under the circumstances of the other three of the program’s starters officially leaving the program after being out of eligibility: Pissott, Washington and Mwenentanda. Brown, who served as a true sixth woman for Vanderbilt this season, will graduate this spring as well.
To make this a little simpler, let’s break it down and do some math. The maximum number of players that can be rostered in Division I Women’s Basketball is 15, with the new rules from the House settlement, all of those positions can be on scholarship. This year, Ralph only has 13 players rostered, leaving, theoretically, two scholarships open from the jump. Both of those will go to incoming freshmen: 5-star recruit Olivia Jones and 4-star Jhai Johnson. With the anticipated departures of the four seniors, that leaves as many scholarships open to be used. If Ralph opts to go with the same number of players she has this year, then that leaves just two remaining spots. This means that Ralph and Co. must look for a real impact player in the transfer portal. One of the major holes in the Commodore’s offense this year was not having a big that is comfortable shooting outside the paint or putting the ball on the floor. The likelihood that they will find a starting five-spot player is slim, so they may look for some lengthy forwards to provide the depth that Pissott’s presence brought.
The ’Dores have been relatively successful in the past few years at bringing in decent talent from the portal. Jane Nwaba and Mwenentanda were both graduate transfers who earned starting positions on Ralph’s squad. The success of Vanderbilt Women’s Basketball this year, where it was steadily in the AP top 10, should only help those prospects.
For now, the ’Dores sit with the pain of elimination and the pride of reestablishing themselves as a national contender before turning to the offseason.
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