No. 12 Trailblazers hold off late comeback to win at Lewis & Clark

GODFREY, Ill. – The No. 12-ranked Vincennes University Trailblazers hit the road to Godfrey for the 'Battle of the Blazers' against Lewis & Clark Community College a day later than originally scheduled and battled to come away with the 71-63 Region 24 road win.

The two teams traded baskets early Thursday night with the two teams remaining even on the scoreboard through the first part of the opening half of play.

VU was the first to break away after an 8-0 scoring run gave the Blue and Gold a 22-16 advantage.

Vincennes would grow their lead to nine points late in the first half before Lewis & Clark answered back late to cut the deficit to five heading into the locker room. VU led at the break 39-34.

VU came out of the break firing early in the second half, quickly grabbing their largest lead of the game at 57-41.

Lewis & Clark would again respond on their home floor, outscoring VU 13-1 to cut the Vincennes lead to four points midway through the second half.

This would be as close as the host Trailblazers would get however, as Lewis & Clark again cut the VU lead down to 65-61 late, before Vincennes closed out the game at the free throw line to come away with the 71-63 Region 24 road victory.

"I guess the biggest thing we did to win tonight was rebound," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "I don't know how many they had, but we had a ton of rebounds, so I think we probably dominated on the glass. Lewis & Clark didn't score the ball well on us. They ended up with 63 and we gave them points off of turnovers. Defensively, we were probably holding them in the low 50's if not for our offense giving them points."

"Defensively, at times, we were not bad," Franklin added. "There were times when we were getting enough stops, particularly early in the second half. But offensively it was a struggle, even though we ended up with 71 points. We turned it over. Shot poorly on the road again. It just didn't seem like we were ever comfortable."

"But, we probably won the game because we dominated on the glass," Franklin said. "And defensively we didn't let them score with any kind of consistency. We really let them back into it with turnovers that helped their offense."

Vincennes was led offensively by sophomore Caleb Johnson (N. Preston, Nova Scotia) who finished with 16 points, three rebounds and a pair of assists.

Freshman Kris King (Washington, D.C.) came off the bench and nearly finished with a double-double, ending with 13 points, nine rebounds and a team-high three assists.

Freshman Michael Osei-Bonsu (Bolingbrook, Ill.) controlled the board for Vincennes on both ends of the floor, finishing with a team-high 13 rebounds, seven coming on the offensive glass to go along with five points.

"I thought Michael on the glass, after the start of the game, got revved up," Franklin said. "We kind of got after him a little bit and got revved up and got on the glass pretty well. He got a couple of buckets in that time when we got a little bit of a lead, but we just couldn't find him consistently inside. Part of it was the defense collapsing down and we had some opportunities to hit some shots and didn't. But that would have loosened things up for him."

"Offensively, I don't know," Franklin added. "We searched all night to find something that we could go to and we really just kind of hodgepodged it together to be honest. We didn't shoot it very well from the field. We hit our free throws decently. We shot those fairly well and made those when we needed to. But offensively, individually, we didn't really have anything where it needed to be tonight. We fought it all night. Give our guys credit, they fought it well enough to get the win. But it's hard this time of year when I know we can play better and we have played better and we've played better at home."

"I thought we played fairly well on the road at Lincoln Trail," Franklin said. "But the last couple of games here on the road we have not had our best effort. So it's kind of frustrating. I'm frustrated with it right now. But these wins are hard to come by and we got one. The guys did enough, but I thought it was mostly defensively when we didn't hurt ourselves. I thought our half-court defense stopped them for the most part at a pretty good rate and we owned the glass. That's really where we won the ballgame."

The Trailblazers will have plenty of time to prepare for their next game after Saturday's home game against Olney Central was postponed Thursday afternoon.

The next game on the schedule for your VU team will be on the road Wednesday, Feb. 1 when Vincennes travels to Ullin, Ill. to take on Shawnee Community College. Tip-off time for that game is 8 p.m. eastern.

VU defeated the Saints earlier this season when Shawnee came to the P.E. Complex in December 70-52. Vincennes was led in that game by a 15-point, 13-rebound double-double by sophomore Shilo Jackson (Indianapolis, Ind.) and 16 points by Caleb Johnson.

"It's not ideal," Franklin said of this upcoming stretch of three games in about three weeks. "We need to be playing on a regular basis right now. We got a little bit of consistency last week and got ourselves a little bit of a rhythm going, but we had a little bit longer of a break before this game. We've got to do a better job of handling it. I've got to do a better job of figuring out how to keep our guys sharp and get our guys going."

"We are going to take advantage of this time," Franklin added. "We are going to do a few little tweaks on defense and here and there. But I don't know if our guys need to harden up or loosen up to get where we can get our best performances on the road. We've usually been pretty good on the road. That's been our history, so it's been a little frustrating. It hasn't really cost us that much in the loss column. We felt like we let one get away at SWIC, but really as far as wins and losses go, our inability to really get ourselves charged up on the road has probably cost us one."

"I'd like to see us turn that corner, but you are not going to turn that corner until you are on the road and you do it," Franklin said. "We get another opportunity next Wednesday and we'll try to work on all of the things that prepare you to play good basketball. We can play good basketball, but we have to bring it to the road with our best stuff. It's good to get one tonight. It was good to get one at Kaskaskia, Olney and Lincoln Trail, those are all good ones that you can put in your pocket, but we've got to play better and I'm going to search to see what I can sharpen up. But really you just try to get reps and duplicate the game as best as you can. But, for us, at this point in time it's more mental than physical or strategical and we'll try to address that as best as we can between now and next Wednesday when we go to Shawnee and get a real opportunity to prove that we can handle it."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (71): Tasos Cook 2-9 4-6 8, Ryan Oliver 2-6 3-4 8, Caleb Johnson 4-9 7-8 16, Michael Osei-Bonsu 2-4 1-2 5, Shilo Jackson 2-5 0-0 4, Trenton Johnson 1-5 0-0 2, James Locke IV 1-4 0-0 3, Devawn White 1-2 1-2 3, Kale Gaither 3-8 1-2 7, Kris King 4-11 4-4 13, Kent King 0-0 0-0 0, Karyiek Dixon 1-3 0-0 71, Team 23-66 21-28 71.

Lewis & Clark – 34   29 – 63

VU (21-2, 9-2) – 39   32 – 71

Three-point goals: VU 4 (Oliver, C. Johnson, Locke IV, Kr. King). Rebounds: VU 54 (Osei-Bonsu 13). Assists: VU 11 (Kr. King 3, Gaither 3). Steals: VU 4 (Cook, Oliver, Jackson, Gaither). Blocked Shots: VU 3 (Cook, C. Johnson, Gaither). Turnovers: VU 19. Personal Fouls: VU 22. Fouled out: Osei-Bonsu.