No. 18 Trailblazers erase second half deficit in season opener overtime win

VINCENNES, Ind. – The No. 18-ranked Vincennes University Trailblazers opened their 2024-25 campaign Friday night inside the Physical Education Complex with day one of the 2024 Kiwanis Classic against East Mississippi Community College.

The Blazers were able to battle back from a 13-point second half deficit to force overtime and come away with an 80-73 victory over the Lions.

Vincennes got off to a slow start in the season opener, with East Mississippi scoring the first seven points of the game, which VU immediately answered with a 7-0 run of their own.

VU broke away midway through the first half with a 13-2 scoring run to take a 28-18 advantage over the Lions before EMCC answered back with a late first half 12-0 scoring run to regain the lead at 35-32.

The teams would trade baskets going into the break with East Mississippi holding a 37-33 lead over the Trailblazers going into the locker room at halftime.

Coming out of locker room in the second half EMCC looked determined to put the game away early, building the largest lead of the game at 53-40 with 15 minutes remaining on the clock.

The Lion lead would remain at double digits before the Blazers got the crowd back into the game with an 8-0 run to cut the East Mississippi lead to 60-57.

VU would even the score at 61-61 with 3:30 to play before the Lions answered back with five straight.

Vincennes refused to go away, closing out regulation with a three-point play by sophomore and 2024 NJCAA All-American Lebron Thomas (Bishopville, S.C.) and a basket by sophomore Bryan Akanmu (Paris, France) evening the score again at 66-66 with 28 seconds left.

The VU defense would hold, sending this game into overtime.

In the overtime period, the two teams began by trading shots back and forth, with VU getting a spark off of a three by freshman Christian Andrews (Asheville, N.C.) before Lebron Thomas sealed the game late at the free throw line, closing out the victory for the Blazers by the final score 80-73.

"We just made more solid plays," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "I thought we fought on the defensive end pretty well except for the last five minutes of the first half. Those last five minutes we gave in to a little bit of the 'we're ahead and I'm tired' mentality and we were a little slow on close outs, a little soft on post defense. We got a little loose and we gave them a chance to get momentum and then it was a heck of a thing to get it away from them."

"I thought we were fighting and trying to get traction the first 10 minutes of the second half," Franklin added. "We just couldn't quite finish plays and make the little shots. Of course they throw up one at the shot clock from about 40 feet. But we showed a lot of toughness tonight. We didn't do anything special. We just said we need to get solid and get stops. We know what we need to do to get stops."

"We've got to keep them off the offensive glass, which was hurting us at the end of the first half," Franklin said. "But in the second half we only gave them one offensive rebound in 25 minutes. That was key because they were going to attack us and put pressure on us. No. 1 and 2 for East Mississippi are pretty good and they are talented and they were feeling it. I told our guys, 'this is everybody's Super Bowl'. This is the biggest non-league game that they are going to play all year. This is where they know the world is watching, the nation is seeing who wins and losses. Recruiters are paying attention so these guys are going to come out and the ones who can play are going to bring it and you saw that tonight."

"That's a good ball club," Franklin added. "That's a team that would be right there at the top of our league. They played some zone on us but I thought we could get shots and looks. Whatever it is that they play against us we just have to get a little sharper and tougher. We settled in a little bit and got better. But just grind it out to win. That's what it comes down to. We finally found a group that we can roll with and we gutted it out and won. That's a great thing for them. They will learn. We've got to figure out who those guys are going to be that are going to be able to gut it out and win. I'm still trying to figure it out and we're figuring it out on the fly. But the group down the stretch did some big things and got what I think and we'll see if it is, probably a great win for this team who is young and learning and going to get better. But I think we should have learned some things tonight that Coach Franklin has been saying. But now you felt it in real life and you could feel the difference of when it worked and when it didn't and why and what kind of intensity it's going to take."

"But I'm proud of them," Franklin said. "It's a good win for us against a good team who was playing pretty well and pretty hard. There was probably about 20 minutes of that game where they were really in tune. But I'm proud of our guys and we've got another tough one tomorrow. So get rest, get up, shoot around, coming back and have another one."

Lebron Thomas led the way for the Blazers Friday night, scoring 24 points, 20 of which coming in the second half and overtime, while also coming away with a team-high seven assists and six rebounds.

Christian Andrews provided a spark off the bench to close out his Trailblazer debut with 17 points and two assists.

Freshman Michael Cooper (Minneapolis, Minn.) came off the bench to lead the Blazers with 10 rebounds to go along with seven points, while Bryan Akanmu finished his night with six points and five rebounds.

Sophomore Hussein Elmaraghy (Cairo, Egypt) got the VU scoring going early with eight first half points and three rebounds and freshman Dayton Williams (Louisville, Ky.) shined on the defensive end of the floor, coming away with six blocks, along with seven points, four rebounds and three assists.

"Lebron was up and down and spotty and then he got some things going late in the game," Franklin said. "We've got to get him hitting some jumpers. I thought he had some open shots at the top of the key that he's got to make and they've got to honor him there. He fought and battled and made plays. He made about all of his free throws. That's been something he's been able to do. He struggled a little bit in the preseason with it, so it's good to see him click back in during game time because he's going to draw fouls. He puts a lot of pressure on you going to the basket, so he's going to get to the line."

"Christian gave us big buckets," Franklin added. "He's just got to get tougher and tougher on the defensive end. They are going to go at him because of his size, so he's got to fight and battle and get it done. Taveon gave us some good things early in the second half when we were spurting. It's just hard because they were muscling up and they are big. Their guards are 6-4 and 6-5 and then they have 6-8, 6-9, long and athletic, so that put us into some bad decisions on who can we play on the wings. But it was tough because I thought Lebron, Christian and Taveon were playing fairly good but trying to put those three guys out there together against that size was tough to guard them."

"Dayton did some good things but had a hard time finishing some things," Franklin said. "But we're trying to find one of those guys that will stick in and battle and rebound. That looked like that was going to be something that would kill us tonight but we cut that off in the second half. That we did do and if we hadn't, we wouldn't have won because we wouldn't have been able to come back if they were still getting offensive rebounds."

The Trailblazers will look to continue this early season roll when VU takes the floor tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 2 when Vincennes hosts Columbia State Community College in the final game of the 2024 Kiwanis Classic at 7 p.m. eastern.

Columbia State C.C. picked up a 93-90 win over Olney Central College in the first game of the Kiwanis Classic Friday evening.

"As I say all the time early in the year and this year it's really true, we're just going to try to win while we learn," Franklin said. "We're going to have to learn no matter what, so hopefully we can find wins and with the schedule we're playing, it won't be easy. When you bring a whole new group in here like we did and you schedule who we scheduled, you've got to be a little bit crazy. But you see why tonight. We could have played some team that we just blow out but we knew that wasn't going to happen and we know tomorrow that won't happen. We're going to have to play hard and do some good things or we're not going to win. We think that it's not only what we need to do in order to go to the National Tournament, but it's also what we need to do in order to become good. I think tonight probably will help us become good. But we'll find out more when I see what they learned from it."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (80): Bryan Akanmu 3-4 0-1 6, Hussein Elmaraghy 3-7 2-3 8, Taveon Smith 2-3 0-0 5, Lebron Thomas 5-10 13-15 24, Dayton Williams 1-5 5-6 7, Drae Vasser 2-2 0-0 5, Christian Andrews 5-7 5-6 17, Meyoh Swansey 0-0 0-0 0, Jalen Calloway 0-1 0-0 0, Michael Cooper 1-8 5-6 7, Travelle Bryson 0-0 1-2 1, Team 22-47 31-39 80.

East Mississippi – 37   29   7 – 73

VU (1-0) – 33   33   14 – 80

Three-point goals: VU 5 (Andrews 2, L. Thomas, Smith, Vasser). Rebounds: VU 36 (Cooper 10). Assists: VU 16 (L. Thomas 7). Steals: VU 5 (L. Thomas 2, Cooper 2). Blocked Shots: VU 11 (Williams 6). Turnovers: VU 22. Personal Fouls: VU 19. Fouled out: None.