VINCENNES, Ind. – The No. 23 Vincennes University Trailblazers were on upset alert with 15 minutes to play Friday night on the opening night of the McDonald's Classic after falling behind 48-32 to NJCAA Division II No. 5-ranked Macomb Community College.
The Trailblazers rallied back on the home floor to outscore the Monarchs 34-10 in the final 15 minutes of play as VU came away with the 66-58 win.
Vincennes grabbed the momentum early against Macomb, jumping out to a 20-14 lead midway through the first half.
Macomb would respond back with an 8-0 run to take the lead and extend their lead to five points at the break, with VU heading into the locker room down 33-28.
Macomb continued this strong run in the second half, opening up the final 20 minutes of play with a 15-4 run to take a 16-point lead.
Vincennes began to slowly chip away at the deficit, using an 11-0 run to pull within five but the Monarchs responded to hold a 58-52 lead late.
VU again went on the attack and grabbed the momentum back as VU evened the score at 58-all with just over three minutes to play and took the lead with two and a half minutes to play.
The Trailblazers closed out the game on a 14-0 scoring run to pull away late and pick up the 66-58 win over Macomb.
"We found some guys in the last 15 minutes that wanted to fight," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "We had to get a little focus and a little fight and that was the difference for us tonight. We spread the floor and went a little smaller with one post in the interior because we weren't getting what we needed to out of our posts."
"That was a really good team that we played tonight," Franklin added. "Macomb is really good. They give you a stylistic approach that is tough. Their point guard is tough. You look at him and you think 'I don't know', he is tough. He battles and fights. They stretch you and back door you with their screens and cuts."
"I thought, overall, it was a good defensive effort," Franklin said. "To hold that team to 58 points and to make it tough on them. They shot 38-percent from the field. There are a lot of positives there. We kept their assist numbers down. They are really good at hitting you, breaking you down and hitting back door cuts and hitting the seams to get a lot of assists and we really didn't give them that. Lost in the fact that we did some things that were sloppy throughout the game, which hurt our defense at times, I thought our defense was pretty good all night when it was allowed to be."
"We made them grind and I think we wore them down," Franklin added. "I thought in the last 10 minutes they really felt the intensity of the game. We'll see how good a win this is by what it propels us to. Like all of these things early, we are trying to learn while we win. We did that tonight. We've had really quality opponents so far. Kankakee, Columbia State and Macomb, those are good teams. They are going to win a lot of basketball games this year and they present different challenges. It's good to be 5-0. It's good to see our grit when we are pushed up against a wall. It's good to see that we could find some guys that were willing to fight. But we'll see how good it is by what our reaction is tomorrow."
The Blazers were led offensively with a big game off the bench by freshman Michael Osei-Bonsu (Bolingbrook, Ill.) who finished with 16 points and five rebounds.
Sophomores Caleb Johnson (N. Preston, Nova Scotia) and Shilo Jackson (Indianapolis, Ind.) also reached double-figures scoring for VU with Johnson ending with 11 points and three rebounds and Jackson finishing with 10 points, seven rebounds and four blocks.
Freshman Kale Gaither (Madisonville, Ky.) ran the VU offense down the stretch on his way to nine points, six rebounds and a team-high four assists.
Freshman Ryan Oliver (Nashville, Ind.) had a big game off the bench, finishing with seven points and a team-high eight rebounds.
"We opened the floor up late and went with Michael at the post," Franklin said. "Michael played really well tonight, he just couldn't quit fouling. He fouled. He would put two hands on you, push, put a hook, all of the things we tell him not to. He has to eliminate them because if Michael had been able to play all night, I thought he was ready to go from the start, you could see it. He only played 12 minutes and got 16 points. I think he would have had a monster night if we had kept him out of foul trouble."
"We were able to keep him on the floor for a stretch, then Shilo came in after he picked up Michael picked up his fourth foul and Shilo actually had a pretty good stretch," Franklin added. "He struggled a lot of the night, but he had a good stretch there late. Our five position down the stretch of the game, in the last 15 minutes, was pretty good."
"Ryan Oliver was outstanding," Franklin said. "I liked the fight from Kale. It wasn't always pretty, the ball wasn't going in easy for him. But Kale, Ryan and Michael really spurred us on the last 15 minutes. I thought defensively, those three were good. It was by far Kale's best defensive effort. He fought screens, he battled and he bought into the stuff that we are saying. That's not something that maybe everybody in the crowd appreciates but we won this game because Macomb couldn't score in the last 15 minutes. Then we quit giving away possessions and that was the difference. I was really proud of Kale's defense tonight. That's something he has really had to work at. His fight and his focus were so much better tonight and if it wasn't, then we would have lost."
"Ryan gave us a guy that was just out there playing smart, tough, able to hit a shot at the top of the key when we stretched the floor," Franklin said. "It wasn't always perfect, but it's not going to be perfect. But the fight was good from that group and it was spurred by those three true freshmen. Here they are two weeks in and their number is being called and some of the other guys whose numbers have been called were maybe a no-show tonight."
"I thought Caleb gave us some minutes down the stretch," Franklin added. "He was up and down tonight but he had some of his up minutes down the stretch late in the game. That group took us home. They fought and battled and we just quit turning the ball over. Let's just say I was not happy about that at halftime and I didn't get a lot happier about in the first five minutes of the second half. But the last 15, it was better. It's still got some ways to go, but it was better. Those things are so important and they are some of our foundational pieces and tonight some of these guys weren't appreciating that like they need to. Hopefully they learn a lesson about what can happen. Do you want to be the team that played the first 25 minutes tonight, or do you want to be the team that played the last 15 minutes? I would much prefer to be the team that played the last 15."
VU will look to continue this momentum into their game tomorrow night when Vincennes hosts an NJCAA Top-25 showdown against No. 16 Northeast Mississippi to close out the McDonald's Classic Saturday, Nov. 12 at 7 p.m. eastern.
No. 13 John A. Logan will get the action started against NJCAA Division II No. 5-ranked Macomb at 5 p.m. eastern.
Northeast Mississippi rallied back from down 18 to John A. Logan in the first game of the McDonald's Classic Friday night. The Tigers won 84-75 over John A. Logan.
"We'll see if we can keep it going tomorrow night," Franklin said. "We'll have our hands full with those three guys from Northeast. Those guys can light it up. The first half tonight they were a little AWOL and Logan was taking it to them, but in the second half you saw that that is a different animal. Stephenson, Rice and Gentry, at the half Northeast just spread the floor and let them go at Logan and it was a different game when that happened."
"We'll have our hands full in a different fashion tomorrow night," Franklin added. "Those are high-level players. Stephenson is going to play at a really high level somewhere. Rice will play at a significant Division I and Gentry will be a good Division I player. Those three guys are good, so we'll see. We'll try to get a big win early while we're learning. But we will have to have some guys play better and we will have to put together 40 minutes of solid basketball all over the court."
"This matchup will be big-time," Franklin said. "Northeast has had their flat half for this weekend. I knew that even if they didn't come back and win that this is probably not good for us because they will be ready tomorrow night. Now they will really be ready tomorrow night. Logan had a really good chance to get them because they were just not right in the first half. But you saw when Northeast gets going, they are very gifted at those three spots. Their other guys are still good players, but those three spots, especially Stephenson and Rice, those guys are a load."
"We'll have our hands full stopping them but we are going to try really hard to do it," Franklin added. "We expect to win, we always expect to win. But it will be a high-level challenge for our new team. You could see tonight that we are a new team. We are still figuring it out as we go. Tonight, the ball wasn't going in, these things weren't there, parents in the stands for the first time this year and guys press and don't play very well. Then you have guys that have played well this year and they have a whiff tonight. Not that they were a little off, they have a whiff."
"Those things happen early in the year," Franklin said. "They don't usually happen in the middle to end of the year to that extreme. Tonight, we had a few guys that were really off and it's hard to win against good teams when that happens. Tomorrow we will not be able to survive if we play people for any length of time and they are really off. Everybody has to come in with their game locked in. We haven't done this yet and we haven't had a game quite like this so far. So, it will be interesting to see how we respond tomorrow."
VINCENNES BOX SCORE
VINCENNES (66): Kris King 1-3 0-0 2, Caleb Johnson 5-11 0-0 11, Shilo Jackson 3-6 4-4 10, Tasos Cook 2-7 0-0 4, Kent King 0-6 2-2 2, Trenton Johnson 0-1 0-0 0, James Locke IV 1-3 0-0 3, Kale Gaither 4-13 1-2 9, Ryan Oliver 3-6 0-0 7, Michael Osei-Bonsu 7-9 2-3 16, Victor Lado 0-0 0-0 0, Karyiek Dixon 0-0 2-2 2, Team 26-65 11-13 66.
Macomb – 33 25 – 58
VU (5-0) – 28 38 – 66
Three-point goals: VU 3 (C. Johnson, Locke IV, Oliver). Rebounds: VU 42 (Oliver 8). Assists: VU 11 (Gaither 4). Steals: VU 5 (Ke. King 2). Blocked Shots: VU 5 (Jackson 4). Turnovers: VU 14. Personal Fouls: VU 19. Fouled out: Kr. King. Technical Fouls: Kr. King (2 – 14:50).
