#101: What would it take for Mikayla Blakes to break Caitlin Clark's record?

Plus: the difficult conversations around Hannah Hidalgo and the Houston Comets

It wasn't the ending that Vanderbilt wanted. No, not at all.

The No. 2 seed Commodores had their season ended in the Sweet 16 when they ran into Hannah Hidalgo (more on her later) and the red-hot Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

But there was a big moment that happened for Blakes in this NCAA Tournament: She hit 1,687 career points.

On the ESPN broadcast, they noted that by hitting that number, she surpassed Caitlin Clark's 1,662 mark through her first two seasons.

That had me thinking: what would it take for Blakes to pass Clark's NCAA scoring record of 3,951 with two seasons to go.

Well, let's look at it.

For Clark, she reached the 1,662 mark in 62 games where Blakes reached hers in 67 games played.

For Blakes to reach 3,952 over the next two seasons, she'd have to score 2,265 points in her junior and senior seasons combined.

The easiest math to do is to look at that as 1,132.5 points per season.

Clark's scoring output went up in her junior and senior season, averaging 27.8 and 31.6 points per game in 38 and 39 respective games.

For Clark, she scored 1,055 points in her junior season – over the target mark of Blakes – and 1,234 in her senior season, which is a single-season record.

OK, so is it rare for a player to score 1,132.5 points in a season?

Extremely.

The leading scorer in the nation in college has scored more than that just once – Clark's record number – and the leading scorer in the country has scored more than 1,000 points just five times.

But Blakes wasn't far off this year. She led the nation in scoring with 918 points, up from her 769.

The telling thing with Blakes will be how far Vanderbilt will be able to go in the NCAA Tournament to bank in some extra games. Remember that for NCAA basketball stats, tournament stats do count toward the career totals.

Blakes has shot 45.6 percent in each of her two collegiate seasons, which is just below Clark's career total at Iowa (46.2 percent).

She averaged just shy of 20 shots per game, so we can use that as the bar.

If Blakes wants to hit the mark, she'd have to play 38 games next year and average 30 points per game to get there.

Since 2009, only 48 Division I teams have played 38 games in a season.

So let's dial it back some more, yeah?

We'll go with 35 games. A number that is more realistic for Vanderbilt as an assumed second-weekend team.

Blakes would have to score more than 32 points per game across 35 games to hit the mark.

It's a mark that she hit nine times this past season and five times in her freshman season.

The last time that someone averaged more than 32 points per game was in the 1991-1992 season when Andrea Congreaves of Mercer averaged 33 points per game.

The closest that someone has come more recently is when Kelsey Plum scored 31.7 per game in 2016-2017.

If I'm Vandy, I'm scheduling an additional non-P4 team in each of the next two years to help Blakes get there.

Because as it stands now, even baking in growth, it's going to be really hard for Blakes to do it.

But if anyone can, it's Blakes. I'm rooting for it to happen because records were made to be broken.

The difficult discussion around Hannah Hidalgo

This has been the tournament of Hannah Hidalgo. Yes, Madison Booker has been a bucket. The top seeds are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

But Hidalgo has been the best player on both sides of the ball. She set the single-season NCAA record for total steals, as well as set a single-tournament record for steals.

She's been a menace. She's been energetic. She's putting aside questions about her WNBA future by being the exception to the rule.

But anytime someone brings her up, it's her hateful, bigoted past that is brought up and not her play on the court.

And that's OK - because that's on her.

I wrote before that Hidalgo is young enough to turn it around, and we saw after the 2025 season, she penned a piece addressing her Candace Owens Instagram post that she shared after the 2024 season.

"I am not homophobic," she said in The Players Tribune. "I love all people and believe we all deserve to exist authentically."

It was nice to see, but it was a nice start.

Because since then, we haven't heard anything from Hidalgo about the post. She hasn't done interviews about it. Hasn't chatted about it. And while she was OK with sharing said post by Owens, she hasn't – to my knowledge – shared or supported those who make up the community that she hurt.

The goal is always for someone to be better, learn from their mistake, and make a real change.

The piece Hidalgo penned was a good start, but it's also easy to chalk that up to a PR move. Real change doesn't come from a PR move to improve your image. It comes from within, and it comes from substantive change.

We haven't seen that from Hidalgo yet.

How have you grown? What talks have you had? What steps are you taking to ensure other young players with a religious background aren't taking similar harmful actions?

She's a joy to watch on the court. But whenever you post or talk about her, the conversation about her hateful and harmful past follows her.

And that's on her.

It's not on me to tell queer people when they can forgive her or if they can. Hannah made her bed in that way, and now she has to understand that this will follow her.

It's not up to the queer community to forgive her. It's up to her to prove to the community that she's worthy of forgiveness.

And for Hannah, that's been the one shot that she's missed constantly.

Houston, you have a (complicated) problem

Houston is getting a WNBA team once again. If you didn't immediately see Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson, and Kim Perrot, then I'd love to know what you pictured first.

And with the situation at hand, I understand if you saw red, instead.

See, the Connecticut Sun will play the 2026 season in Connecticut before moving down to Houston after selling its team to the Fertitta family. The Fertitta family – known Trump donors – is the latest NBA group to want in on the WNBA action, purchasing the franchise for a record $300 million (tell me again how the WNBA isn't profitable, haters?).

So, what's the issue?

Well, last year, another NBA team owner – Celtics' minority owner Stephen Pagliuca – wanted to buy the Sun for $325 million to move them to Boston.

However, the league stepped in and stopped that deal to prioritize cities that were in expansion discussions. Boston had not done that, instead trying to go straight to moving a team instead of trying to look at an expansion bid.

The Mohegan Tribe purchased the Sun originally from Orlando (shoutout to the Miracle!) and moved them to Uncasville, Conn. The tribe entertained a deal last year, and the state even stepped in to try to put together an offer to relocate them to Hartford instead, but it fell through.

So now, we have another team in Texas, while the northeast loses one. The New York Liberty are now the only team in the northeast of the United States (Toronto is, of course, in Canada).

What it will do is bring back one of the most marketable teams and logos in the league's history. It's also coming at a time when 80 percent of the league are free agents.

No hate to Uncasville, but players hated playing there, didn't want to share practice courts during the WNBA playoffs with birthday parties for kids, and didn't have a lot to offer as far as big-city living.

With the team in Houston starting next year, how will that change the team's pitch to free agents? You'll have to spend one year in Uncasville but then get to be the face of the franchise to revive an old team in Houston.

It's enticing for sure. There's just a lot of mixed feelings with how it was all handled and continuing to empower the billionaire men who run the NBA.

Until next time

We'll see you back here on Friday.

I love you awesome nerds.