COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – On Thursday, USA Basketball announced that Vanderbilt women’s basketball All-American Mikayla Blakes was named the 2025 USA Basketball 5-on-5 Female Athlete of the Year.
Blakes earned USA Basketball 5-on-5 Female Athlete of the Year after being named the most valuable player at the 2025 FIBA Women’s AmeriCup in Santiago, Chile, this past July. The guard averaged a team-best 14.0 points per game and chipped in 3.4 rebounds and 2.0 steals per outing to lead the United States to the gold medal in South America.
The Somerset, New Jersey, native registered double-digit points in six of the seven games she played in Chile, and led Team USA in minutes played at 22.1 per contest. Additionally, Blakes’ performance placed her on the FIBA 2025 Women’s AmeriCup All-Star Five.
The Vanderbilt standout, who was one of the youngest players on the Team USA roster at the event, saved her best performance for the gold medal game. Blakes scored 27 points and pulled down six rebounds against Brazil to help the United States to a gold-medal victory. Her 27 points in the title game were the most scored by an American at the 2025 FIBA Women’s AmeriCup.
The six-time All-American has picked up where she left off after a historic freshman season at Vanderbilt. The 2024-25 USBWA Tamika Catchings National Freshman of the Year leads the SEC in scoring through the first week of conference play, as Blakes is putting 25.2 points per game this season. The guard has scored 30-plus points in four contests, while she has eclipsed the 20-point plateau in 11 games. Blakes is one of two players in NCAA Division I this season to rank inside the top 10 nationally in scoring (3rd; 25.2 ppg) and steals per game (8th; 3.73).
No. 7/6-ranked Vanderbilt returns to action on Thursday, as the Commodores welcome Missouri to the Music City. Tipoff from Memorial Gymnasium is set for 6:30 p.m. CT, and streams live on SEC Network+.
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