South Carolina women’s basketball looks to pick up its first win on the road since losing to Texas in Austin on Feb. 6.
The No. 6 Gamecocks (24-3, 12-1 SEC) beat Arkansas 95-55 on Thursday night and now travel to Nashville to play Vanderbilt on Sunday (3 p.m., SEC Network+).
The Commodores (19-8, 6-7) are coming off a loss to Oklahoma, where they fell 101-81 on the road. Coach Shea Ralph, who is in her fourth year with the program, has yet to beat coach Dawn Staley since becoming a head coach, but Ralph did beat South Carolina seven times from 2015-21 when she was an assistant with UConn.
South Carolina is 22-21 in the all-time series against Vanderbilt and comes into Sunday riding a 16-game win streak, as it hasn’t lost to the Commodores since 2011.
Here’s what you need to know about the matchup.
Mikayla Blakes is Vanderbilt’s star, SEC freshman phenom
Freshman Mikayla Blakes is putting up a convincing campaign for SEC Freshman of the Year. The 5-foot-8 guard has scored over 50 points in two different games and on Thursday night, had her fifth 30-point game of the season, finishing with 34.
She’s averaging 23.4 points, which is No. 6 in the nation and second in the SEC. Blakes is only behind Arkansas’ Izzy Higginbottom, who South Carolina held to 10 points on Thursday, her third-lowest total of the season.
Blakes hit a thrilling game-winning shot to beat Tennessee on Jan. 19 and her 55 points helped Vanderbilt beat Auburn in a comeback win last Sunday. That set an NCAA freshman single-game scoring record.
It’s likely that senior guard Bree Hall will match up against her, but Staley said Blakes is very hard to stop.
“When you’ve got the greenest of green lights, it’s hard to stop, you’re unafraid and have no fear of missed shots,” Staley said of Blakes. “It’s hard when you are running up against a player like that, you’ve just gotta make it difficult. You gotta control what you can control.”
Not giving Blakes clean looks, not fouling and making her uncomfortable are aspects of South Carolina’s defense it can control.
Khamil Pierre brings size, scoring to challenge South Carolina
Blakes isn’t the only one who scores for Vanderbilt. Sophomore forward Khamil Pierre is 6-foot-2 and is scoring 20.8 points per game. She’s scored over 24 in three games this month and deepens Vanderbilt’s scoring options overall by being a threat inside the paint while Blakes does her thing outside.
While Sania Feagin, Joyce Edwards and Chloe Kitts aren’t necessarily shorter than Pierre, she’s averaging more rebounds than all of them with 9.7.
If Hall forces Blakes into a bad shot, it’s key for Kitts, Edwards and Feagin to keep Pierre from crashing the boards and on defense, when she rebounds South Carolina has to be ready for Blakes to try to run in transition.
Vanderbilt women’s basketball’s SEC resume
Despite the nine losses, the Commodores have picked up some big conference wins. They beat Tennessee, beat Alabama, which gave South Carolina trouble, and lost to LSU by six.
Late in the season, a team like Vanderbilt could be hard to stop if South Carolina takes the Commodores lightly or plays anywhere close to how it did against UConn.
South Carolina vs Vanderbilt prediction
South Carolina 89, Vanderbilt 77: Blakes scores over 18 points but Hall doesn’t let her put up 50, and South Carolina’s starters are more connected on offense.
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Lulu Kesin covers South Carolina athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email her at lkesin@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @Lulukesin
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: South Carolina women’s basketball vs Vanderbilt score prediction, news
