Vanderbilt Makes History: Commodores Improve to 20-0 and 6-0 SEC with Dominant Win Over Auburn
Dores Improve to 20-0 and 6-0 in SEC Play
The No. 5/4 Vanderbilt Commodores Women’s Basketball team arrived at Memorial Gymnasium 19-0, hosting the Auburn Tigers who defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide last week in a big win.
Tonight, the Dores returned off of a busy past week. They were just three days removed from their win over No. 7 Michigan in the Coretta Scott King Classic and tonight they handled business in an 81-53 win over the Tigers.
Mikayla Blakes showed early on her team first mentality and took two charges in the first 1:20 of the game. The Dores were able to jump out ahead early, as Pissott, Mwenentanda, and Galvan showed their midrange game. Justine hit a sweet turnaround jumper to start the scoring.
Sacha Washington was on the boards early and it was evident that Auburn was outsized and outworked in the paint. By the first media timeout with 4:48 to go in the first, Washington had brought in three rebounds, and the team as a whole dominated the glass. Aiyana Mitchell followed suit and gave Sacha a rest, keeping the same intensity.
With four minutes to go in the quarter, Justine Pissott hit the Commodores’ first three on the night, and Aubrey Galvan followed right back with one of her own. That gave the Dores a 10 point lead of 14-4 and had also run up a 10-1 rebounding advantage.
The Commodores were pesky and gave Auburn no room for error, forcing six turnovers in the opening quarter while holding them to 12 points. The second quarter was a bit of a different flow.
Vanderbilt had a rough second quarter with taking care of the ball. That allowed Auburn to open the quarter with a 6-0 run, keeping Vanderbilt scoreless until Aiyana Mitchell hit a couple of free throws with 6:06 to go in the quarter.
Vanderbilt has these stretches sometimes, and they just have to settle back in and get back to business. Mikayla Blakes finally got on the board in the second with 5:34 to go. She was 0-6 until that point, but due to the way the team as a whole was playing, you wouldn’t know.
I asked Coach Ralph after how hard it is for a team to get up night after night at a high level. At 20-0 now, and especially coming off the week they had on the road, I wondered if the Commodores would suffer fatigue. She gave a great answer that included a life lesson as well.
“I mean, it can be, it can be tough if I make it tough, right? If I say like, oh, this is really hard, then they’re gonna be like, oh God. This is so hard, right? It just has to be what we do. It’s, you know, how tough it is. Is it tough for you to do your job in certain parts of the year or for me to do my job or like, you know, there’s certain things that if we look at it with a different lens, I think we can just shed light on, Hey, you get to do this,” said Ralph.
“You don’t have to, you get to, you get to do this, you get to show up and play for Vanderbilt. And we’re number four in the country right now and we’re on a 20 game win streak. The hottest team in the country. Right. That’s it. I mean, it feels like it, it’s exciting. So yeah, you’re gonna have, um, ebbs and flows maybe to your energy, but if I stay steady, then they stay steady.
“I’m the weather. I show up stormy and rainy and all pissed off, and thunder clouds and all the things, and then they’re gonna be like, oh, this is gonna be hard, you know? But if I don’t, if I show up, all right, every now and then, I gotta blow a gust of wind at ’em and then, you know, knock ’em out a little bit, of whatever they’re in, but.
“I think if I show up a certain way, then my team knows that this is just how we operate. We create a habit and you know what? That’s gonna serve them well for the rest of their life. There’s a lot of stuff that they’re gonna face that’s hard and they don’t know it yet. But if we can teach ’em how to do hard things, just ’cause that’s what you do and that’s how you show up, then the rest of their lives they’ll be equipped to handle whatever comes their way.”
The Tigers were able to claw their way to a four point deficit going into the half, 33-29. Vanderbilt just had a bit of an off quarter, scoring just 10. Heading into the half, the Dores shot 3-for-13 from beyond the arc and had only been to the free throw line once. Turnovers were also an issue in the second quarter, as the Dores gave it up five times.
Njdakalenga Mwenentanda and Mikayla Blakes came through with back to back threes shortly into the third quarter, and Aubrey Galvan put up another flying short range two to put Vanderbilt up, and then nailed two free throws on the next possession to put Vanderbilt up 43-31. Just like that, the Dores had jumped ahead by double digits.
Afterwards, I asked Aubrey about her court presence and those acrobatic shots she puts up.
“I mean, just, not even just college, I mean, just leading up into it. I was kind of just like always training, always in the gym. Um, and that still has to be part of it, a presence. They’re always still telling me shoot it more. So, just the confidence in myself and the team behind me is kind of all I need for it.”
The intensity had picked up on the defensive side, and on offense they were pushing the ball and controlling the tempo. Aubrey Galvan and Mikayla Blakes took over in the third, especially Blakes. Mikayla went to work and put her cape on, scoring 12 points in the quarter to help Vanderbilt to a 60-41 lead going into the fourth.
She flipped a switch for sure in the quarter, and Vanderbilt’s defense came out of the half strong, outscoring Auburn 28-12.
Galvan is much more than a scorer. She has great vision and drops dimes into the paint very well, as she finished the night with a double-double of 15 points and 10 assists. She was able to find Sacha Washington a few times for shots at the rim. Washington finished with a double-double also of 18 points with 12 rebounds. She was just too much for Auburn to handle down low.
Auburn was tired of chasing Vanderbilt around and the physicality was getting to them in the second half. The Commodores were able to control the game with tempo and on the boards, and that helped them to a sizable win over the Auburn Tigers, 81-53, to improve their historical run to 20-0 on the season. They are also 6-0 in SEC play for the first time in school history.
Mikayla Blakes finished as the leading scorer with 20 points, five assists, and four rebounds. Along with Galvan’s and Washington’s double-doubles, Justine Pissott added 10 points and seven rebounds with three assists.
Here is the opening statement to the post game press conference from Coach Shea Ralph.
“I am reminding myself that this makes us 20 and 0, and that’s a great thing. Right? That’s a great thing. And the other thing that I’m reminding myself is that I, I like being in this place where I know that we didn’t even, you know, we didn’t play well today. That was clear, especially in the first half,” said Shea Ralph.
“I kind of like being pissed off after a win. I kind of like it because I know that means that I know how good this team can be, and what I also like is that my team and these two in particular (Sacha Washington & Aubrey Galvan) responded really well after halftime and that looked more like, especially in the third quarter, our team and our players.
“And we took control, which we should have done sooner, but I, but I love the response from our team. I love that we had multiple contributions today, um, and I thought Sasha was a beast in the paint and that was great to see as well.”
The Dores return to play Sunday at South Carolina. The Gamecocks will be coming off a loss, as they dropped an overtime game to Oklahoma. This should be a good one.
Featured Image Credit: Vanderbilt Athletics
Comments 2