Postgame Notebook: I watched Vanderbilt's Mikayla Blakes in person. Here is why she is now and next.

You might have heard of the freshman scoring record, but what makes Blakes a star?

Mikalya Blakes is a star and has every capability to be a future household name in women’s basketball.

You might know her for breaking JuJu Watkins’ freshman single game scoring record (or by listening to No Cap Space! We have been here with Blakes and Vandy!) by dropping 53 points against Florida and then breaking her own record by scoring 55 points against Auburn. Basically she made history, then did the Spongebob with super speed quote of “want to see me run to that mountain and back? Wanna see me do it again?”

Understandably, the scoring numbers have been the emphasized dialogue around Mikayla Blakes and also her case to be National Freshman of the Year. When you’re scoring the way she does it is bound to happen

However after getting to watch Blakes in person for the first time, while the scoring was still phenomenal with her dropping 34 points in Vandy’s loss to Oklahoma and making it happen in various ways, it quickly hit me that only talking about her scoring is doing a disservice to all she does on the court.

Let’s look at some of the other aspects that stood out from one of the new stars in women’s basketball, Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes.