Thomas’s career-high double-double leads Trailblazers to win over No. 17 Triton

VINCENNES, Ind. – VU sophomore and 2024 NJCAA All-American Lebron Thomas (Bishopville, S.C.) stepped up in a big way Saturday night, guiding the Trailblazers to a big 85-71 victory over No. 17-ranked Triton College.

Thomas got going early and helped the Blazers to victory with a career-high 39 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.

Vincennes got off to an excellent start Saturday night, opening the game with an 11-2 run over the visiting Trojans.

Triton would answer back and cut the VU lead back down to one at 19-18 before the Blazers responded with nine straight points to get the advantage back to double digits.

The two teams battled throughout the opening 20 minutes with Triton chipping away at the Vincennes lead before the break, with the Trailblazers heading into the locker room holding a 34-30 lead over Triton College.

Vincennes came out of the locker room firing early in the second half, outscoring Triton 15-7 early in the final half of play to get the lead back to 49-37.

Triton again came answering back with a 13-3 scoring run to cut the VU lead to two but again were unable to erase the Trailblazers lead as VU got the lead back to 12 at 65-53.

The Trojans continued to fight and cut the lead down to five but Vincennes responded with five straight points to get a 70-60 lead.

VU was able to hold on to this lead down the stretch as Vincennes put the game away late at the free throw line to close out a big 85-71 wire-to-wire victory over the Trojans.

"I thought tonight was another step forward for us," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "We're still not a finished product at all and we're not going to be for a little while. We just want to keep getting better and get more competitive and I thought we did both of those tonight."

"I think we've had a pretty good week," Franklin added. "Mineral Area on Sunday, I think Mineral Area is good. It was a really good ball game that could have gone either way. I thought we played better in that game then we have. I thought it was a step up and I think they are right there in that top 20 to 25. Then after a little bit of a slow start, I thought we handled Schoolcraft the way you hoped we would moving forward. Then tonight we took on another top 20 team and I thought we took another step forward. It's a 2-1 week record wise, but it's still a good week. That's just part of our team right now."

"We're playing good teams every night and our team isn't all the way there yet, but we are where we are," Franklin said. "We're probably a top 25 to 30 team legitimately and we can play with anybody. And we will see if we can get good enough over the next month or two where we separate from everybody. We're in that pool. Southeastern Iowa is top five in the country, we've been on the floor with them. We've felt the levels and our opponent Wednesday night has done the same."

"Logan has played good people," Franklin added. "They are going to be talented and they've gotten better. They have improved. They are much like us, they have gotten better over the last month playing in these games. They've lost some games and won some games. They've been competitive in most all of the games. That's just the nature of this year. There's no dominant team to start out and there are some of us that I think can be pretty good that are in a race to see how far we can get and I thought we got better tonight."

The Trailblazers were led offensively by sophomore and 2024 NJCAA All-American Lebron Thomas who came through with 39 points, 10 rebounds and a team-high six assists, while hitting 15 of 15 shots from the free throw line.

Sophomore Michael Cooper (Minneapolis, Minn.) closed out his night with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists.

Freshman Kenaz Ochogwu (E. Providence, R.I.) was the third VU scorer in double figures, ending his night with 11 points and five rebounds.

Freshman Dayton Williams (Louisville, Ky.) added eight points, three assists, three rebounds and a pair of steals and freshman Jalen Calloway (Chicago, Ill.) finished seven points, three rebounds and three assists off the bench.

"We keep telling Kenaz that the difference between him and Lony Francis, they are a little different players but they are in the same type of role," Franklin said. "In their freshman year, Lony ended up being an All-American because we had a really good team and he got to be a guy that could score inside. Really the only difference is that Lony listened to what we said, mastered those simple things and then he went out there like a killer. 'You're going to have to stop me and I don't think you can' kind of thing. If Kenaz has that same attitude, he can do those same types of things. You saw that in the second half where he got a little bit of that. His ceiling is every bit as high as Lony's was. Now will he do that? We'll see. But you can see glimpses of that in the second half tonight."

"We gave Dayton the defensive assignment of Anderson," Franklin added. "We thought his length could bother him and it did. He's their man guy and main scorer and Dayton bothered him and that's a big part of the game. Dayton might have only had eight points but that's a big part of the ball game taking him and neutralizing him."

"We got contributions from everybody that played I thought," Franklin said. "It's a night where Lebron puts up big numbers but I still thought it was a good team effort across the board. Again, we're not going to be perfect. I'm literally teaching this team how to compete and the intensity level. We're getting closer and I thought this week we were closer and by the end of the week we are a better team than we were even on Sunday."

The Trailblazers will look to keep this momentum going as they get set to start Region 24 play next week when VU hosts John A. Logan College Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. eastern inside the Physical Education Complex.

Vincennes will then hit the road next weekend to face Lincoln Trail College Saturday, Dec. 14 in Robinson, Ill. That game will tip-off at 4 p.m. eastern.

"It's a tough time, playing a game right in the middle of finals week," Franklin said. "There are a lot of factors that go into this game. But it's a big game. Both of us will be very different by March when it really counts. I think both of us are going to evolve a lot. But it's still going to count as the first game in the District standings and it's our time and we've got them at home."

"Hopefully we can get a bunch of people out here next week and help us out with it," Franklin added. "And hopefully we evolve one more step from tonight and we can get even better at the things that we improved on this week. As I've said many times, it's about the individual players evolving into their roles and taking that on and getting better. That's what you saw this week. We've kind of got it now where we've got a good idea of what we are supposed to do to function. We'll keep tweaking but we've got an idea now, so now it should just be about going out there and playing. Now it's really about perfecting your craft, learning how to really compete, learning how to play with that right kind of intensity for the whole two-hour period. Those are the things I thought we got better at."

"Things like playing against a zone," Franklin said. "We've had time to prepare and work on it. You see they played a zone in the second half and we were able to do some things to be able to pick it apart at times and they've got more weapons to use against that now. So all of those things have added up and we'll see where we are on Wednesday. I like where we are trending but we've got to get hungry for it. We've got to say, we see where this is going and now when I see them again Monday morning in the weight room, we want more of it. If we have that, now we really are going somewhere. So we'll know Monday when we get back to work if they want more."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (85): Bryan Akanmu 2-6 1-3 5, Michael Cooper 3-9 9-11 15, Kenaz Ochogwu 5-6 1-2 11, Lebron Thomas 12-22 15-15 39, Dayton Williams 4-8 0-0 8, Christian Andrews 0-2 0-0 0, Jalen Calloway 2-3 2-4 7, Ali Sakho 0-0 0-0 0, Team 28-56 28-35 85.

Triton – 30   41 – 75

VU (8-3) – 34   51 – 85

Three-point goals: VU 1 (Calloway). Rebounds: VU 38 (Thomas 10). Assists: VU 17 (Thomas 6). Steals: VU 5 (Williams 2). Blocked Shots: VU 4 (Ochogwu, Thomas, Williams, Andrews). Turnovers: VU 15. Personal Fouls: VU 18. Fouled out: None. Technical Fouls: Akanmu (1st – 0:17).