NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — AP All-American Mikayla Blakes gets a lot of the attention at Vanderbilt as the nation’s leading scorer.
But the Commodores are going to their first Sweet 16 since 2009 because they have so many others helping the Southeastern Conference’s player of the year.
There’s the freshman point guard who is a whirling dervish on the court and plays Robin to Blakes’ Batman. There’s the 6-foot-2 graduate forward who stuck around after missing last season with a blood clot issue. And then there’s the 3-point shooter in her third year at Vanderbilt after transferring in from in-state rival Tennessee.
It’s coach Shea Ralph’s best team yet in her fifth season at Vanderbilt (29-4).
“We are a team, a really, really good team with great pieces,” Ralph said. “Everybody has value. Everybody has a role that they play that’s really important for us to win big games.”
Blakes brings the scoring, averaging 27.1 points a game this season and an even better 30.5 clip in SEC play. She also just missed a triple-double in the second round with 25 points, nine assists, 10 rebounds and four steals.
“She is a facilitator," said senior Justine Pissott, the 3-point shooter who started her college career at Tennessee. "She rebounds the ball. She’s just a great player all around. It’s really important when she finds everybody — there’s not one person she doesn’t miss on the court, and when she misses them, she’ll get them the next time.”
Vanderbilt earned a No. 2 seed in the women's NCAA Tournament with four starters averaging double figures.
SEC freshman of the year Aubrey Galvan, generously listed at 5-foot-6, whips passes to teammates, spins in the lane for layups and knocks down big 3s. She's second in scoring to Blakes with 13.2 points a game and has a season-high of 30 points.
Ralph said they work to put together a team that complements each other and ignored the idea that Galvan was too small to compete in the SEC.
“What we saw from her, along with the intangible qualities — chip on her shoulder, competitiveness, love for basketball she has — was that she was going to be just fine,” Ralph said.
Galvan also led all freshmen in assists and ranked fourth nationally with 81 steals. Blakes said it took all summer and lots of yelling for the Commodores to get on the same page with Galvan. Post players especially had to learn to always be ready for a pass.
“If you’re not looking at her, you’re going to get hit in the head with a ball, and it’s happened a lot of times,” Blakes said. “Every time she has the ball, she’s looking to pass.”
Sacha Washington is the graduate student who has been with Ralph every step of this journey, returning after a blood clot in her right calf cost her the 2024-25 season. Now she plays her first Sweet 16 on Friday against No. 6 seed Notre Dame (24-10).
The SEC's active leader in career rebounds grabs 7.9 of them a game and tied the program mark in an NCAA Tournament game with 17 in the first round. Tears flowed Monday night when Washington checked out with a couple minutes left with hugs all around.
“Really you never know when you’re going to be done playing,” Washington said. “I’ve been healthy this whole season. So words can’t even explain, but I’m very grateful to be here and I’m very happy.”
Ralph appreciates Washington sticking with her in this transfer portal and NIL era.
“That kid has really, really, really poured her heart and soul into this program, and we would not be where we are without her,” Ralph said.
A McDonald's All-American who played her first season at Tennessee, Pissott was struggling after the loss of a grandfather. She credited Ralph and Vanderbilt with picking her up when she didn’t know how. The senior who shoots 40% beyond the arc scored a career-best 11.2 points a game this season.
“I may not have scored a lot, I may not have done a lot,” an emotional Pissott said. “But I tried to be a leader for everybody around me, and I hope that they have noticed that.”
Ralph had to replace four starters, so she brought in a pair of transfers in graduate Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda from Texas and junior Aalyah Del Rosario from LSU. Ralph noted Mwenentanda bet on Vanderbilt after going to a Final Four last year, believing the Commodores would do something special.
Now they're off to Fort Worth and the 1 Region with No. 1 seed UConn looming on the other side of the bracket. Ralph just wants her Commodores playing their roles as designed as they chase a championship.
“Nothing has to change,” Ralph said. “It doesn’t matter who we play.”
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
Vanderbilt forward Sacha Washington (35) celebrates the team's win against Illinois in the second round of the NCAA college basketball tournament Monday, March 23, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus’ government is upset it was kept in the dark.
When an Iranian-made Shahed drone struck a hangar at a British air base on Cyprus' southern coastline minutes after midnight on March 2, sirens had already been blaring on the base's grounds, warning personnel to take cover.
But the British had not informed the Cypriot government, and now the east Mediterranean island nation wants to re-evaluate the status of Britain's two bases at Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
The British warship HMS Dragon was on Tuesday making its way toward waters off Cyprus to offer additional protection from any potential attack.
Here's what we know about what could happen with the bases.
On March 1, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the U.S. would be allowed to use British bases for the “specific and limited defensive purpose” of hitting Iran’s missile storage and launch sites. The announcement prompted concern among Cypriot authorities, appearing to contradict British assurances they wouldn’t use the island's bases. British officials later specified that the bases in question are located in England and the Indian Ocean, not Cyprus.
The following evening — according to two senior Cypriot officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter — British authorities gave Cyprus' government no warning of a drone heading toward the RAF Akrotiri base, nor that a nearby village of 1,000 people could potentially be in danger.
The Ministry of Defense in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The experience has prompted President Nikos Christodoulides to call for a “frank and open discussion” with the U.K. government about the future of the bases.
“I’m not going to negotiate publicly, I’m not going to put my request publicly, but we need to open this discussion,” Christodoulides said at the European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels on March 20. “The British bases in Cyprus is something that is a colonial consequence.”
Starmer’s office said in a statement that he had spoken to Christodoulides at the weekend to reassure him that, “as close partners and friends, Cyprus’ security was of utmost importance to the U.K.” Starmer is also said to have reiterated that RAF Akrotiri would not be used for any U.S. strikes on Iran.
Cyprus gained independence from British rule on in August 1960 after a four-year guerrilla campaign which came at a price — Britain retaining two bases spanning 99 square miles (256 square kilometers).
Their creation is enshrined in Cyprus' constitution. The Sovereign Base Areas have their own police force and courts and, in the strictest legal terms, are British colonial territory, according to Costas Clerides, the island's former attorney general.
Nearly 66 years later, many Cypriots — including Christodoulides — regard the bases as reminders of their colonial past. Some 10,000 Cypriot citizens live inside bases' territory and are subject to bases’ authority.
Calls to abolish the bases have been raised previously, particularly when they are used for military action in the region. Peaceful protests against their continued presence have been far smaller than in the past.
While created primarily to monitor shipping traffic through the Suez Canal and secure the flow of Middle Eastern oil, the bases have done far more.
RAF Akrotiri is still home to the famed U2 spy plane that conducts high-altitude surveillance flights over the Middle East. It also served as a key logistical post for the U.S. operation in Iraq in 2003 and, more recently, was used to prosecute the campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. The bases also feature a mountaintop listening post to monitor communications in the Middle East and beyond.
Successive Cypriot governments have said that Britain would inform the authorities of any military action undertaken from the bases, but that's understood more as a courtesy than an obligation.
“We are playing a leading role, with the Republic of Cyprus, in coordinating the increasing capabilities in the eastern Mediterranean, to help that sovereign base to remain as protected as possible in the circumstances and in the face of the Iranian threat,” U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey told Parliament on Monday.
Christodoulides said last week that Cyprus has “a clear approach with regard to the future of the British bases.” He declined to provide any details, but said any negotiation with the U.K. would take place after the end of the Iran war.
The Cypriot government has stated publicly that abolition wouldn't be on the table — at least for now.
Any dialogue would employ a step-by-step approach to secure more transparency of base operations, such as additional information and intelligence gathering, according to the Cypriot officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. They did not rule out a renegotiation of the status of the bases along the lines of the agreement the U.K. struck last year with Mauritius over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
The U.K. agreed to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius, and pay an average 101 million pounds ($135 million) annually to lease the base for at least 99 years.
U.S. bombers now use the U.K. base on Chagos' largest island, Diego Garcia, to strike Iran.
On Sunday, Iran said it launched missiles at Diego Garcia.
AP writer Jill Lawless in London contributed.
FILE - A U-2 spy aircraft lands at the U.K.'s RAF Akrotiri air base, near Limassol, Cyprus, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)
FILE - British paratroopers with the 16th Air Assault Brigade line up to board a C-130 transport aircraft at RAF Akrotiri air base in Cyprus for an airdrop over Jordan as part of a joint exercise with Jordanian soldiers, June 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)
FILE - The gate of the U.K.'s RAF Akrotiri air base at sunset after it was struck by a drone earlier in the morning near Limassol, Cyprus, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)
FILE - F-35B aircraft pass on a runway after landing at the Akrotiri Royal air forces base near city of Limassol, Cyprus, May 21, 2019. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias,File)
FILE - British soldiers wave to the F-35B aircraft after landing at Akrotiri Royal air forces base near city of Limassol, Cyprus, May 21, 2019. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)
FILE - A British soldier walks by a Typhoon aircraft before take off for a mission in Iraq, at RAF Akrotiri, near the southern coastal city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sept. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)
