No. 6 Trailblazers open Region 24 play with road win at Shawnee

ULLIN, Ill. – The Vincennes University Trailblazers checked in this week at No. 6 in the NJCAA Division I National rankings and hit the road Saturday afternoon for their first Region 24 game of the season at Shawnee Community College.

The Trailblazers got off to a great start but needed a second half rally to pull away from the Saints and pick up an 82-66 victory in Ullin.

Vincennes came out of the gates strong against the Saints, scoring the first nine points of the game before Shawnee answered back with a 10-2 scoring run to cut the deficit to one.

VU would strike again to get the lead back up to 10 at 29-19 before Shawnee went on to outscore Vincennes 14-4 to even the score at 33-33.

The Trailblazers would get the final basket of the half and head into the locker room break holding a 35-33 advantage over the host Saints.

Vincennes opened the second half like they did the first half, outscoring the Saints 16-4 to take a 51-37 lead early in the second period.

After seven unanswered points by Shawnee, VU grew the lead back with a 10-0 scoring run to take a 61-44 lead midway through the half.

Shawnee would attempt to cut into the deficit as the game wore on but were unable to cut the VU lead down to single digits as the Trailblazers finished out the game at the free throw line to close out an 82-66 victory at Shawnee.

"We just tried to ground and pound it a little bit," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "We went with more of a jumbo set and really tried to play three posts most of the time. We ran some actions and got them where we could get the ball inside, that way we made them pretty simple defensively. I thought that was our best chance of controlling the game and we really went to it all of the time after halftime."

"We ended up with 47 points in the second half," Franklin added. "We were either scoring or we would get an open corner shot if it went inside and back out. We did a really good job of that from about halftime on. We knew we were going to go with that a little bit but after halftime we basically decided we were going to go with that for the entire half and just ground and pound."

"Defensively, we just had to stay in front," Franklin said. "We needed to take Anderson out and I thought we had some guys do a pretty good job on him. I thought Karyiek did a pretty good job there and we gave him that assignment for most of the early parts of the first and second halves. Sometimes those things are not as noticeable to some people as much as scoring but he is the guy that needs to score for them and he wasn't able to do that with much consistency. He got a few buckets on offensive rebounds, which were not over Karyiek. But other than that, we held him down pretty well. That was the big key."

The Trailblazers were led offensively by freshman Lebron Thomas (Bishopville, S.C.) who finished with 22 points, six rebounds and six assists, including hitting 14 of 14 from the free throw line.

Freshman Damarien Yates (Somerville, Tenn.) continued his strong showing with 18 points and seven rebounds Saturday afternoon.

Sophomore Michael Osei-Bonsu (Bolingbrook, Ill.) finished off another double-double, finishing with 17 points and 13 rebounds on the game.

Freshman Gerard Thomas (Henderson, Ky.) and sophomore Karyiek Dixon (Enfield, London, UK) each finished with six points, while sophomore Ryan Oliver (Antioch, Tenn.) finished his day with five points and four assists.

"I thought Lebron, Damarien and Michael, obviously were big," Franklin said. "There are necessary improvements that still need to be made all across the board with all of those guys. But those guys were big. You need those guys that are going to go out there and make plays that win games."

"I thought Lebron controlled the ball for most of the game," Franklin added. "He had pretty decent vision and kept them to where the pressure that they kept trying to apply really never had much of a factor and it certainly was never a factor that you thought was going to be a sustained factor and that's key when you are going to try and pound it like that. Like we were trying to do with that group and what we have as a team. That's probably something that we are going to probably do no matter what, certainly without the Kings, that's something we are going to go to."

"We've got to get better at hitting some shots on the inside out," Franklin said. "Do a little bit better at chinning the ball. We had the ball knocked out of our hands a couple of times when there were plays to be made. We need a little bit better timing and patience and hold it for just a split second longer to let the perimeter guy get in a good position. But those are things that we should get better at."

"I thought Ryan played a good basketball game," Franklin added. "He got in a little bit of foul trouble but I thought he was playing a really solid game which was key with what we were trying to do. We'd like to get him a few more inside out touches for shots but that will come. I thought he was good."

The Trailblazers will look to head into the holiday break on a high note when the Blazers host Southwest Tennessee Community College Wednesday, Dec. 20 at the Physical Education Complex. Tip-off time for this game is set for 7 p.m. eastern.

This is the final game of the 2023 portion of the VU schedule, with the Trailblazers coming back to start off 2024 against Malcolm X College Saturday, Jan. 6 in Chicago, Ill. Tip-off time for that game is 4 p.m. eastern.

"Our new guys are being put through a lot," Franklin said. "From the jamborees when we played some of the better teams, then you go into the regular season and our schedule has been as good as anybody anywhere, on the road and at home. They've been through big games, ranked games, now they've been through a road Region game. Getting on that bus for three hours, getting off and playing an afternoon game, so they've had plenty to be able to take in information. At times it's going to be frustrating. At times you're going to get a lot of things because this is high intensity stuff and we're racing the clock every day."

"And we're still in this time that we have to race the clock before Wednesday," Franklin added. "Then over break they should really be starting to accumulate some things and beginning to process that. Because you really kind of throw them in a blender at our level and they are just having to learn on the fly. So I'm hoping to see some of that processing going on right now where you can see it's taking a little bit. And maybe the idea of what we're telling them to do, they need to do. And what we are telling them not to do, they don't need to do, whether that's on the court, off the court, wherever that is and we had a discussion that we are going to have to do a better job of that if we are going to reach where we should."

"If I don't tell them the right things, when it's over it will be my fault and I'll take the blame for that," Franklin said. "But we've been doing this a long time. We're probably going to tell them the right things. So that's what we want to see. We want to see all of those things being taken in and it should because they've all been out there with chances to be put through it."

"Whether it's some of them who it was not so much early but here lately like Gerard," Franklin added. "Gerard's been out there a lot. Mathieu's been out there a lot. Obviously, Damarien has been out there. We'll see if Alphonse can be out here on the practice floor and do what he needs to do there and get to where he is. He, early on in the jamborees, was getting a lot but here lately has not and he's missed a lot of practice time. You can't do that at this level."

"I want to see the sophomores getting more use to being sophomores and being leaders," Franklin said. "They haven't done that before, so they are learning that part. We want to see all of that and see all of that come together. We're 12 and 1 with the schedule that we've played. The only loss was in overtime at Indian Hills where we know there were a number of things we didn't do. We could have won that game and had the ball in our hands to win it. So we're in good shape as far as what we've gotten done and what's on the resume but what we have to be is in good shape as far as what we've learned going forward and how we are going to perform going forward."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (82): Damarien Yates 6-12 5-5 18, Ryan Oliver 2-3 0-0 5, Lebron Thomas 3-7 14-14 22, Michael Osei-Bonsu 6-8 5-6 17, Karyiek Dixon 3-12 0-0 6, Gerard Thomas 2-6 1-2 6, Mathieu Nader-Kalombo 0-3 4-6 4, Victor Lado 2-2 0-1 4, Vilhelm Bodingh 0-0 0-0 0, Team 24-53 29-34 82.

VU (12-1, 1-0) – 35   47 – 82

Shawnee – 33   33 – 66

Three-point goals: VU 5 (L. Thomas 2, Yates, Oliver, G. Thomas). Rebounds: VU 39 (Osei-Bonsu 13). Assists: VU 18 (L. Thomas 6). Steals: VU 6 (Yates 3). Blocked Shots: VU 8 (L. Thomas 2, Osei-Bonsu 2, Dixon 2). Turnovers: VU 10. Personal Fouls: VU 21. Fouled out: Oliver. Technical Fouls: L. Thomas (2nd half – 1:46).