No. 15 Vincennes University Trailblazers’ season comes to an end with opening round loss to Holmes

HUTCHINSON, Kan. – The 2021 Vincennes University Trailblazer season came to an end Monday afternoon after VU fell in the opening round of the 2021 NJCAA Division I Men's Basketball tournament to Holmes (Miss.) 71-66.

VU got off to a slow start offensively, falling behind 9-3 early, before going on a 7-0 scoring run to take the lead.

The Bulldogs answered back with a 6-0 scoring run of their own and held the lead the rest of the half, heading into the break with a 37-31 advantage.

Vincennes held a lead for only 23 second in the opening half of play as the Holmes lead grew to as many as nine points in the first 20 minutes of play.

The Trailblazers came out of the locker room and played with determination as VU opened the second half on a 10-3 run, capped off by back-to-back three's from Brandon Muntu and Randy Tucker as Vincennes took a 41-40 lead.

VU built on this run to build a six point lead midway through the second half and looked to be in complete control of the game.

Momentum quickly shifted back as Holmes cut the lead down to just a single point, where the margin would stay within one possession for the remainder of the game.

The Bulldogs took the lead back at 61-59 and would not surrender it back, as some late free throw shooting by Holmes capped off their five-point win over the Trailblazers.

'I thought we were okay in a lot of areas, but there are a couple that we would have liked to have been better. I thought it was disappointing that their inside guys actually won against ours," VU Hall of Fame head coach Todd Franklin. "You look at it and say if we're going to hold Higgins to 15 and Talley to 1 of 3, you would have thought we won this game by 15-20 points. Weatherspoon had a bigger day than we wanted him to have, he's a good player, he was aggressive and played well. I thought he just out-willed us a few times."

"I thought both teams played fairly cleanly, they only had five turnovers, they're hard to turnover because they handle the ball and they're well-coached. We won the rebounding battle by two and they are good at that. They were mirror-images of what we were trying to do and concepts. I thought we gave up a couple of big offensive rebounds that really hurt us. We had a missed box-out one time and they got a tip-in over us when we should have had a stop and we had a foul on Wells, but those are big plays when it all comes down to it."

"I thought Nigel would have gone to the line when he cut it to 67-66. I think, for sure, he got fouled. That would have been big because the shot clock was off at that point. Then we have to try and turn them over, when they've had five all game and they're almost impossible to turn over and you just have to hope they miss free throws. But tip your hat to Holmes, they fought through a game where Higgins, who is their main guy, goes two of 15. I thought this was a quality game. It was a worth game of being at the National Tournament with team that are in the top-24 in the country, they just made one more play than we did."

VU was led offensively by Randy Tucker, who finished with 14 points. Tucker was one of four Blazers to reach double-figures in the points column.

"I was glad to see Randy Tucker go out with a quality performance. I thought he rose up and hit some big shots tonight. When we were really struggling to score, Randy was the one guy who stepped up and kept us in the game, so it was great to see him do that. I would have loved to see him get a win and see him get another chance to play, but that's the way it is in the National Tournament. A good team is going to advance and in many cases a good team is not."

Brevin Jefferson ended his day with 11 points and a team-high four assists. Nigel Martin made just his second start of the season and scored 10 points and grabbed five rebounds.

"I thought Brevin played a good basketball game. Brevin's not the greatest break down point guard of all-time and that's not who he is and he's really had to work to get where he's at. He had the job of guarding Higgins and that's a tremendous job and to hold him to 2 of 15 from the floor and hold him under double-figures, that was a heck of a performance. Higgins was the best player in Mississippi this year and the reason they were here. Offensively Brevin only had two turnovers, he kept us in it. He was pretty solid, especially for his first time out here and he's taking on somebody like Higgins and statistically he got the better of Higgins, which if you would have said before the game that Brevin was going to get the better of Higgins, we should win the game."

DJ Brewton came off the bench to finish with 10 points and five rebounds as well.

The Trailblazer season ends with a record of 17 wins and seven losses, including a 12-1 record in homes games at the P.E. Complex.

"It's been a long year, tough year, tough year in every way starting back when this tournament got called off last year and it's been a struggle to get back here and get this team playing well enough to be in games like this or compete in a game like this. First couple weeks of the regular season we certainly weren't there. But it's frustrating to end it a little bit short. There are things that we could have done better but that's always the case this time of year. At the end of the day if they had told us at the end of the first two weeks of the season we would get to where we got, it is commendable for our guys to get to that point from where we were. Now we'll just roll up our sleeves and hopefully have a somewhat regular offseason so we can get back to recruiting and doing things the way we've done them because that's just who we are."