Blakes Scores 34 as No. 5 Vanderbilt Blows Past No. 4 Texas 86-70
Commodores Were Tougher
Tonight brought a top five matchup to Music City, and the No. 5 Vanderbilt Commodores came out running against the No. 4 Texas Longhorns’ top SEC defense. That is something that can be tough against an airtight man defense that presses, but the Commodores were able to move the ball and drive to set up offense early, and they never looked back. Vanderbilt took this one 86-70.
For the second time this week, the Vanderbilt Commodores dismantled a highly ranked team. First it was No. 10 Oklahoma on Monday night, and tonight, No. 4 Texas Longhorns. The Commodores went on a 14-0 run in the middle of the first quarter to go up 18-7, and Texas never recovered.
Coming in, I wondered how they would fare against the “tough” defense that Texas has boasted this season, and it was really no issue. Actually, it was no issue on either end of the floor.
After the game, Texas’ coach Vic Schaefer had a fiery response to his team’s lack of effort. It was not a good night for the Longhorns, and the message tonight was the Commodores were tougher and had more heart.
“You know, you wanna ask me, what does it take to win at this level? What’s it gonna take for my team? You gotta have heart. We got no heart. And, I just thought they were tougher,” said Schaefer. “They were more physical, more aggressive. We whine, we complain. You just have no heart.”
I asked Coach Shea Ralph how it felt for her to see her team be the tougher team, and how they have become tougher in just a short amount of time from a few weeks ago. She was happy to see that this team had responded. After a tough couple of games, they went back to work and figured out what needed to take place.
“It’s a good feeling to know that they respond, right? That they are willing to look at themselves, and we are willing as a staff to say, ‘Hey, we’ve gotta make some changes, right? What are the things that we need to work on and get better at?’ And let’s get to work there and let’s do this together, and they respond,” said Ralph.
Still, there is more work to be done. The season is far from over, and they are not perfect. I don’t see that being an issue for this Commodores squad. They tasted adversity and they did not like it.
Texas had good size, but Vanderbilt crashed the boards and finished with a 40-37 rebounding advantage. There were no one-on-one efforts, and that was needed because Texas brought a bunch of physicality at first that the refs overlooked. You could say they let them play tonight, and that was ok because Vanderbilt went at the Longhorns and didn’t really let a press or man defense deter them from what they wanted to do.
Aubrey Galvan and Mikayla Blakes picked up where they left off from Monday night and were just challenging the Longhorns to stop them. Blakes was able to move and drive pretty much when she wanted and finished the night with 34 points, her fourth consecutive 30-point performance.
After the game, I asked what the Longhorns were giving her. After all, Texas came in with a top scoring defense, and teams had talked about how tough their defense was. Blakes, as she always does, credited the team for making it work. Vanderbilt is a hard team to key on.
“Honestly, I’d say my teammates, when they’re going, it is hard to stop just one person individually,” said Blakes. “I think the way we started the game is exactly how we started the last game. It’s just so hard because you can’t help off Aubrey, you can’t help off Justine, you can’t help off Jack (Ndjakalenga), you can’t help off Sasha ’cause that means there’s free buckets there. So, I think my teammates definitely opened it up for me today.”
As always, when she drives and gets to the rim, she is just about unstoppable. Vanderbilt also shot a total of 25 free throws on the night, and Blakes had 15 of them. That says everything about her mission to score.
Galvan was just doing what she calls playing basketball. She started out fast and hot with 13 points in the first half and finished with 18 for the game. She contributed in all areas of the game as she always does and finished the night with eight rebounds also. That was just one off the team high of nine from Sacha Washington, and she led the team in assists with five.
Texas really surprised me at how much their defense broke down once Vanderbilt got past the press and into halfcourt situations. They came into today only allowing 54.8 points per game, and Vanderbilt was able to surpass that early in the third quarter.
Vanderbilt was able to work at all three levels: close, mid range, and beyond the arc. Justine Pissott got it going early from beyond, and she helped spring that big early first half run. The Commodores hit nine threes on the night, but they just really out-hustled and were tougher, as Schaefer spoke on. In the second half, Sacha Washington was able to go to work and finish with 10 points and nine rebounds.
Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda was a beast on the court tonight against her former team, and it was a carry over from how she brought it Monday as well. When it came to the Commodores’ defense, she played a huge part and disrupted Texas all night, as she recorded four steals. As a whole, she played a very efficient and clean 39 minutes. Mwenentanda finished with 11 points and six rebounds.
“I was so happy for Ndjakalenga today. I mean, it’s tough, right? You spend a lot of time in a program and then you come to another one and we have a different style of play. Ndjakalenga, especially over the last couple weeks, has been so locked in, in different ways and she’s really started to play more freely. I think it takes time to play how we play. It takes time to understand. It takes time to build confidence. That kid could not be playing better at a better time. And the same could be said for all the other players on our team that are making contributions,” said Ralph.
The Commodores continue to get contributions from the bench in ways that are not just about scoring. Aalyah Del Rosario logged big minutes, especially in the first half, and was a hindrance to the Longhorns in the paint. The energy and effort is there, and it comes from all players. The Vanderbilt Commodores had the better and tougher defense in this one, and held the Longhorns to 38.5 percent from the field and 20 percent from three.
The Commodores are seriously trending upward at the right time and look like a team that is putting together a special run. There is still a lot of time left overall. The regular season and SEC Tournament have to be played, but this is a totally different team than what we saw at South Carolina and Ole Miss. Vanderbilt has challenged some of the top teams in the country and have now dominated back-to-back ranked opponents.
This team will now head to Georgia on Sunday to take on the Bulldogs, and will look to make it five in a row. That game is set for 12:00 PM ET/11:00 AM CT, and can be seen on SEC Network.
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