Tennessee
How Mikayla Blakes’ shot gave Vanderbilt, Shea Ralph first signature win over Tennessee
Vanderbilt basketball coach Shea Ralph had a few choices when drawing up the play down one against No. 15 Tennessee. She could give the ball to star forward Khamil Pierre, a monster athlete who’s often unstoppable in the paint. She could choose veteran Iyana Moore, the team’s best shooter. Or she could go to star freshman Mikayla Blakes, who had equaled Pierre’s 21 points in the game.
Ralph chose Pierre. She received the ball on the inbounds from Blakes, then drove to the basket, generating an open look for the lead. But she missed, and that’s when Blakes came in. When Pierre released the ball, Blakes stood just beyond the free-throw line. But by the time Pierre’s shot rolled off the rim, Blakes was there. She leaped, pushing the ball into the basket, and it dropped, giving Vanderbilt the 71-70 victory.
With that, Vanderbilt women’s basketball (15-4, 2-3 SEC) had its first win over the Tennessee Lady Vols in five years and the first rivalry win under Ralph. Blakes, a McDonald’s All American and the No. 8 player in the Class of 2024 who chose the Commodores over a long list of blue bloods, including Tennessee, had her first superstar moment. Blakes said it was the best moment of her basketball career.
“I couldn’t tell you what I saw,” Blakes said. “I mean, I saw the ball go up, and then I was thinking it was going in, and then it came off the rim right into my hands. So I had to make that.”
The Commodores led most of the game against the Lady Vols (15-3, 3-3). But a 15-2 run in the fourth quarter gave Tennessee the lead, with the Lady Vols going up by as many as five with just over two minutes to go.
But several hustle plays got Vanderbilt back in it. The Commodores forced Tennessee to call timeout when it couldn’t get the ball in on an inbounds. After that timeout, the Lady Vols got the ball in but got tied up at midcourt, giving the ball back to Vanderbilt. Pierre made two free throws to take the lead back with 31 seconds to go.
But the Commodores allowed an open layup on the other end, giving Ralph 4.9 seconds for the win. That’s when Blakes stepped in.
Vanderbilt has been in a slow build under Ralph. The Commodores finally got back to the NCAA tournament for the first time in a decade in 2024, but it was as a First Four team. Vanderbilt won all but one regular-season game against teams ranked below it in the SEC but didn’t win a single game against a higher-ranked team. The Commodores came close to their first statement win at LSU on Monday, but Vanderbilt couldn’t finish the deal and lost by six.
“I told them before this game, there’s a fork in the road for us,” Ralph said. “We’ve had a couple of really tough losses where we got smacked. We have ones where we’re really close on the road, and we lost and our team is tired of being right there. They said that we’re tired of being right there. We want to be there. And I said, Well, we must keep working. … Do we just, you know what, we’re right there, or do we really lock in and say, No, we’re going to get there now?”
The Lady Vols are known for pressuring the ball, forcing turnovers and getting in transition. But Vanderbilt forced Tennessee into a slower-paced game, one without a ton of fastbreak opportunities and just 22 combined turnovers. Both teams shot below 40% from the field, but the Commodores made a higher percentage of threes (32% to 23%) and went 19-for-22 on free throws compared to 12-for-15 for the Lady Vols.
This was the game, and the shot, that announced Vanderbilt as a force to be reckoned with in the SEC. Not just a team that will rack up wins by beating lower-tier programs but one that can win big games too. Blakes has been a big part of that. Players like her who could’ve gone anywhere out of high school, and players like Pierre and Moore who could’ve had transfer opportunities, have stayed with the Commodores because, as Ralph said, they don’t want the easy way out.
“Today, I think not only did the players buy in, but now they fully believe, because they saw what it what it is,” Ralph said. “They saw how we can do it and they achieved the result that we were after.”
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @aria_gerson.
WHITE HOUSE, Tenn. (WZTV) — A heavy law enforcement presence was reported Tuesday near the intersection of U.S. Highway 31W and Rolling Meadows Road in White House.
FOX 17 News has a crew headed to the scene and is working to learn more about the situation.
Law enforcement vehicles line a roadway near the intersection of U.S. Highway 31W and Rolling Meadows Road in White House, Tennessee, as authorities respond to an active incident on Tuesday. Officials had not released details about the investigation at the time the photo was taken. (Photo: FOX 17 News )
A viewer told FOX 17 News a man was barricaded inside a home with other people inside. However, FOX 17 News has not independently confirmed those details.
Once at the scene, FOX 17 News learned that a man who was inside the home during the operation had exited the residence. FOX 17 News is working to obtain more information on the incident that is now subsiding.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Tennessee
Former Tennessee teacher who allegedly showed nude photo to student indicted by grand jury
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — A grand jury has indicted a former Montgomery County high school teacher for allegedly showing an inappropriate photo to a student.
In March, FOX 17 News reported that 52-year-old Matthew Vedder, a teacher at Montgomery Central High School at the time, showed a 17-year-old student a nude photo of himself. Vedder told investigators he accidentally swiped to the photo while showing students photos of a school project. He later resigned from Montgomery Central High School.
Makenzie Ellithorpe, is the Montgomery Central High School student who Matthew Vedder allegedly showed inappropriate photos to. (Photo: FOX 17 News)
MORE | Teacher accused of showing nude photos to student resigns, family pushes for charges
On July 7, the Sumner County District Attorney’s Office presented the results of a law enforcement investigation into Vedder to the Montgomery County Grand Jury, which voted to indict him on four counts of exhibiting obscene material to a minor.
Vedder was taken into custody by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. A Montgomery County judge set his bond at $10,000.
RELATED COVERAGE | Family renews calls for CMCSS director’s resignation during heated school board meeting
Although Vedder resigned, the family of a Montgomery Central High School student called for the resignation of the Director of Schools, Dr. Jean Luna-Vedder, Matthew Vedder’s spouse. The district previously told FOX 17 News that Luna-Vedder removed herself from any disciplinary decisions and the investigation involving her husband.
As of June, Luna-Vedder has not publicly commented on calls for her resignation.
This is an ongoing story. Stick with FOX 17 News as we bring you the latest.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Isolated showers and storms over the next few days will make for more brilliant color displays across the sky.
Rainbows have been very common across Middle Tennessee for several evenings now. With all the recent rain, conditions have been ideal for fabulous displays of brilliant colors. Some of you have even reported seeing double rainbows. WSMV4 viewer, Leslie Whited, captured the one above, early Tuesday evening, July 14th.
To find out how double rainbows form, let’s first examine how a single rainbow occurs.
Single rainbows form when the sun, positioned behind you, has its light refracted through raindrops ahead of you.
Those raindrops bend sunlight as it passes into the drops. Then, some of that light reflects off the back of the drop and is bent one more time as it exits the drop. That entire process is called single reflection. Single reflection produces the primary or brightest rainbow.
Sometimes, some light reflects twice while in a raindrop before exiting. This is called double reflection. Double reflection produces a secondary rainbow. The order of colors within a secondary rainbow is a mirror image of the primary rainbow (i.e. the reverse). Secondary rainbows are not as bright as primary rainbows because less light is double reflected than is single reflected (i.e. some light is lost or attenuated every time light is reflected). Notice the fainter secondary rainbow in Leslie Whited’s double rainbow/storm picture at the top of this article.
The ideal time to see a rainbow is when the sun is relatively low in the sky (and has the best chance of being at your back). That translates to early morning or evening. Since in our current weather pattern, showers and storms are most numerous during the late afternoon and evening, that’s when you’ll have the best chance of seeing a rainbow through the rest of this week. If you’re very lucky, you might even see a double rainbow.
Happy sky watching!
For life-saving weather alerts, customized messages on conditions and forecasts, and videos detailing upcoming weather events, download the WSMV 4 First Alert Weather app for iPhone or Android. Have weather pictures or videos? Share them here.
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