Blakes Scores 35, Galvan’s Clutch Shot Lifts Vanderbilt Past Kentucky on Senior Day
Response Given: No. 5 Vanderbilt Defeats Kentucky
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Today was Senior Day at Vanderbilt, and the Commodores would welcome a rematch with the Kentucky Wildcats.
Senior Sacha Washington was not in the lineup due to illness, and that put Aiyana Mitchell in the starting lineup. Mitch turned in a much-needed solid performance today, as well as the team overall, in Vandy’s 81-79 win over Kentucky to improve to 25-3 (11-3 SEC).
This is the game you want to see your team pull out this late in the season, and the matchup with Kentucky has now delivered two late-game wins by the Commodores. After a week to regroup, prepare, and look at some things, I could see the response from the team as a whole. The confidence was there and it showed.
Freshman Aubrey Galvan was back to herself, and with 20 points scored, her two most important came with a clutch mid-range shot with 7.9 seconds left to put Vanderbilt up 80-79. Her unshaken, “is what it is” outlook on everything is impressive for a freshman, and that jumper showed just how unbothered she is.
“It felt good, nothing much more to say about it. I mean, just making a play…” said Galvan when Alaina Morris of Vandy 247 asked how her first game-winner felt.
Still, the Commodores will probably never play a perfect game, and that is ok. The response is there and they are mature in making adjustments. One of those adjustments came from Kentucky’s early three-point success. Kentucky got right to work and took a 10-point lead before the first media timeout, shooting 4-for-6 from beyond the arc.
Then the Vanderbilt adjustments began to take form, and given the Wildcats still had some open looks throughout, they finished 10-30 from three-point range.
Vanderbilt used the whole team today, with great contributions from the bench. The Commodores finished the day with 26 bench points to Kentucky’s 14. 20 of those were Galvan’s due to her taking the early bench seat on Senior Day. They also won the battle on the boards with a 38-33 advantage and a 30-26 advantage in the paint.
Ava Black was solid off the bench and provided six points with nine rebounds and a steal in 17 minutes. Black looks more comfortable on the floor, and she has had some good moments over the last few weeks. The continuous confidence builder for her will be key now and in the future.
That kind of all-around contribution is exactly what makes this team dangerous, and I asked Mikayla Blakes afterwards, as a leader, how it felt to see a total team effort today with so many contributions.
“I just think that’s how we win games here. Everybody is contributing. Everybody’s locked in on what they’re supposed to be doing. And when they got on the floor, they produced, I feel like. We get wins. So I feel like as long as we continue to do that, everybody stays confident. We’ll be good,” said Blakes.
Blakes went to work in today’s game and finished with her 10th 30-plus-point performance this season with 35. Locked in and ready to go, as the team normally goes as she goes, and she set that tone in the first quarter with 10 points.
I felt then it was going to be a good day for Blakes and the Dores, and she put a complete product on the floor. Even to the last, she was there to clean up the loose ball that Clara Strack lost from a Justine Pissott steal, and the emotion was there. You could feel it. She then went and hit a free-throw to put the final tally of 81 Vanderbilt points on the board. This team had stood to the challenge and came away with the all-important stop to help seal the game.
When asked about that play, it was pretty simple. They knew that the best player on Kentucky’s team would get the ball in that situation. They had prepared for that, and it paid off.
“We knew the ball was going to her, and we’ve been told this whole week when it goes to her, know who you can help off of and who you can’t. Then, I’m pretty sure Justine had a really good dig. So the ball got loose,” said Blakes.
Aiyana Mitchell was key in Vanderbilt’s victory. She has dealt with some tough games the last couple of weeks, but today she stepped up when the team needed her the most in Sacha Washington’s absence. She went toe to toe with Clara Strack most of the game, and that is a tough task. Mitchell finished with 12 points, nine rebounds, one assist, and one steal. It was the game that not only Vanderbilt needed, but so did Mitchell.
“She was great! She had a great shoot around this morning knowing that Sacha wasn’t going to play, she was super locked in. I think she was ready for the moment. And even there’s a couple times where she came out and I didn’t even have to say anything to her. She was like, I got it, coach. I know what I did wrong. I won’t do it again,” said Shea Ralph.
A locked-in Mitchell showed probably the biggest growth and response of any Commodore today, and that was crucial to the team’s success.
“When you talk about the growth of the kids that have been here for a couple years, and this is her third year, and the way that she showed up when we had to have it, we had to have it today from her, just her energy and her effort and her staying connected on the court and connected on the bench and connected to the staff, was incredible. She made some huge defensive plays in the second half after, you know, not starting off great defensively, and I was just really proud of her communication and again, doing the things that we know she’s really great at, especially when we had to have ’em down the stretch,” said Ralph.
The Commodores clinched a double-bye in the SEC tournament by taking down Kentucky today, and they also tied the program record with their 11th SEC win. That ties the 2007-08 team, and you don’t do those things without responding to situations during a long season. There is much more out there to accomplish, and still some things to clean up, but Vanderbilt just continues to show that they are building a championship environment and mindset here in Nashville.
“There are other good teams and good players. They’re gonna make plays when we make mistakes. They’re gonna take advantage of them. People aren’t just gonna roll over. How we respond is everything, can’t be reactionary. We have to respond, and I don’t think you can be really, really, really successful unless you fail a lot. You just run up against something that maybe you gotta learn a little better or do a little better next time,” said Ralph.
That preparation and accountability is exactly what Ralph preaches, and she made clear that nothing her team sees in games is new territory. Vanderbilt didn’t lead in this game until midway through the third quarter, and they were prepared to lean into their experience and preparation to do what it took to pull out a hard fought win. These are the games that sets you up for March.
“Everything that we see now in games, we’ve seen that before. My job is to prepare them, and it’s our player’s job to just bring resiliency and perseverance. That’s it. I think it’s really that simple. I do love playing in the SEC because you’ve gotta show up every night, and it’s created a habit for us. It’s gonna be the same way when we get to March, it’s gonna be the same way,” said Ralph.
Vanderbilt returns to Memorial Gymnasium Thursday night for a 6:30 PM CT against the Alabama Crimson Tide. You can catch the game on SECN+.
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