Last second three gives Trailblazers win over John A. Logan to begin Region 24 play

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University Trailblazers opened Region 24 play Wednesday inside the Physical Education Complex with another tough showdown with the Volunteers of John A. Logan College from Carterville, Ill.

The game was back-and-forth, tough and physical all night with the Trailblazers gaining the edge late with a three-pointer by sophomore and 2024 NJCAA All-American Lebron Thomas (Bishopville, S.C.) with 10.3 second remaining to push the Blazers ahead for the 78-77 victory.

The game was back-and-forth right from the start with the two teams trading baskets throughout the opening minutes of the game before the Trailblazers first broke away with an 8-0 scoring run to take a 23-18 lead.

The Volunteers quickly answered back to regain the lead before VU outscored John A. Logan 12-3 to build a 37-30 lead.

John A. Logan battled back to even the score at 37-37 before Vincennes scored six straight points.

The Volunteers got a put back at the buzzer to cut the Vincennes lead down to 43-39 heading into the halftime break.

Coming out of the locker room break the two teams once again traded baskets before Vincennes grabbed the early advantage with six straight points to take a 56-51 lead.

John A. Logan would slowly chip away at this lead, erasing the deficit to take a 64-63 lead.

The lead changed hands 13 times Wednesday night with the score being tied 12 times during the game.

The Trailblazers played from behind for most of the final stretch of the game, tying the game with a big three-point play by sophomore Michael Cooper (Minneapolis, Minn.).

After a John A. Logan basket, Vincennes came out of a timeout and connected on a last second three by Lebron Thomas with 10.3 second remaining to put VU ahead 78-77.

The Trailblazers held strong on defense in the last seconds, not allowing the Volunteers a second look at the basket at the buzzer as VU comes away with the 78-77 victory to open Region 24 play.

"We made one more play, that's it," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Tood Franklin said. "At the end of the day, I thought it was a high quality game. Both of us have places that we are both going to want to improve in the next couple of months. That was the best I've seen them. Coach Smithpeters had them ready but I anticipated that. One way was because they were more patient. You see that sometimes when you see teams play us and you watch the film of the games before, one thing when they get against us that you are going to see is them be more patient. They will run their stuff longer and harder, so you don't get a lot of the cheap stops that you'll see watching on film. I try to stress that to our guys. Everybody is going to try to get us and everybody is going to know that to break us down they are going to have to do those things and the players are willing. You are going to see a different player because of that and you saw that tonight."

"We've watched Logan on film the last couple of weeks, they are getting better, but they weren't grinding like that," Franklin added. "Now, we've got to do a better job of moving our feet, executing on those elbow screens. We knew it was coming, there weren't any mysteries. But we got out executed a little bit in the second half. But we'll work at that."

"I thought that Logan played well in the second half," Franklin said. "Us getting into immediate foul trouble to start the second half, that's no small thing. We basically took Kenaz out where he didn't play because of that. I'm not sure he ever hit anybody hard enough to crack an egg tonight. We got seven fouls early, I'm not sure if we could have combined all of the contact that led to those fouls, if it would have cracked a good egg. The first half, I thought, was a pretty physical, we're going at it type of game. To start the second half, there we were and that played into exactly what they wanted to do. We knew what it was and what they went and did. I thought we blew a few assignments."

"We let Smith come back on a spin twice," Franklin added. "He spun back to his right hand and got five points and we know he's going to finish back right. Things like that, hopefully we will clean up as we go into the second half of the year where we'll be better and more disciplined in those moments. All of those things matter and they matter a lot."

"We didn't box out as hard as we needed to in the second half," Franklin said. "I said that's on me. You have finals this week and things, sometimes you can only practice so many things as intently as you need to and we probably haven't spent enough time because we've been rebounding fairly well. I thought we started giving up too many offensive rebounds. We out rebounded them on the game but we did not do a good job of putting a body on a body, finding them and hitting them first in the second half. They did a better job of hitting the glass than we did, so tip your hat to them. But we'll see if we can't be better than that next time."

Vincennes was led offensively by Michael Cooper who finished his night with 27 points, including hitting a perfect seven of seven from the free throw line.

Lebron Thomas closed out his night with another strong all around performance with 24 points, seven rebounds and six assists.

Sophomore Bryan Akanmu (Paris, France) just missed out on a double-double with eight points and eight rebounds, while freshman Ali Sakho (Toronto, Ontario) came up with some big first half offensive rebounds to finish with eight points and four rebounds.

"Obviously offensively Lebron and Michael made big plays and shots that you've got to do if you are going to win ball games like this," Franklin said. "I thought Ali gave us some good minutes in the first half. He's not anywhere near in shape and hopefully he will be a better player in the second half of the year."

"I thought Darstin gave us really good minutes in the first half," Franklin added. "I thought he picked our intensity up on defense greatly. And again, we've played a lot of times without either one of those guys. We've been playing with a limited roll here for a little bit to start out. Not only are we new and putting it together but a lot of these guys haven't played and Travelle is not playing now. He's another big 6-foot-5 wing that we could have used tonight. He was eligible to go but he hasn't been back practicing hard enough long enough for me to put him in there right now. But hopefully as the season progresses, he's a guy that would help us, if he's right, in that situation."

"It's a high quality game," Franklin said. "They played well. Logan came in here and said hey, it's District time. They've played tough teams to get ready and here it is, let's get after it. I thought we had chances to push them down a bit in the first half and didn't. Then in the start of the second half with the fouls and those things it just didn't bode well for us. We had to find some things down the stretch to pull it out but at the end of the day, we did."

"Consecutive wins over Logan and Triton now, that's come a long way in a month," Franklin added. "We've just got to keep chugging and we'll see what we can do at Lincoln Trail on Saturday."

The Trailblazers will look to continue this momentum as they get set to hit the road Saturday, Dec. 14 for another tough Region 24 contest against Lincoln Trail College in Robinson, Ill. Tip-off time for that game is set for 4 p.m. eastern.

Vincennes will then close out the 2024 portion of their schedule Saturday, Dec. 21 when VU heads up to Chicago, Ill. for another contest against Malcolm X College at 4 p.m. eastern.

The Trailblazers defeated the Hawks 87-66 earlier this season inside the P.E. Complex on Hurricane Relief Night.

"We hope to move our feet better and box out better," Franklin said. "That will be what I want to see Saturday. We're progressing. We've played pretty good opponents every night out for 12 games now with a new team and we're 9 and 3. Everybody in the country seems like they are about that way and yet for some reason we are the one that they all say, well you're not up here anymore. I don't really understand that. Our wins are pretty good. Our losses are not too bad. I think we are a lot better basketball team than we were a month ago and I think we need to be a lot better team in a month and I think we will be. But we've got to go do it. I'd like to be a better team by Saturday."

"We get out of finals, I don't think we have anybody with a final on Friday, so we'll be able to get our breath and get back, maybe get our legs," Franklin added. "I thought we were a step slow on the defensive end really all night. I thought we were letting them play us instead of us playing them. These are real life things for these guys in college. They are real and Logan is going through the same thing. We'll see if we can get it geared up another gear for the next two games."

"These next two games for us are going to be tough," Franklin said. "Malcolm X has been beating most everybody they play and running up big numbers. I think that last Saturday before break up in Chicago is not going to be easy. They've got three really good perimeter players that can light you up and it's in Chicago which is a different deal. We've got two road games left before break. If we can get out of this thing and win against Lincoln Trail and beat Malcolm X and get 11-3 and 2-0 in the District, with what we've had to put together here, I think we would be in pretty good shape turning into the second half of the year. But we've still got more work to do over the next week and a half."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (78): Bryan Akanmu 4-6 0-0 8, Michael Cooper 9-16 7-7 27, Kenaz Ochogwu 0-1 0-0 0, Lebron Thomas 6-12 11-14 24, Dayton Williams 2-8 0-0 4, Christian Andrews 0-0 0-0 0, Jalen Calloway 1-3 1-2 3, Darstin Onye 1-1 2-4 4, Ali Sakho 4-4 0-0 8, Hussein Elmaraghy 0-1 0-0 0, Team 27-52 21-27 78.

John A. Logan – 39   38 – 77

VU (9-3, 1-0) – 43   35 – 78

Three-point goals: VU 3 (Cooper 2, Thomas). Rebounds: VU 32 (Akanmu 8). Assists: VU 13 (Thomas 6). Steals: VU 4 (Cooper, Williams, Calloway, Sakho). Blocked Shots: VU 3 (Williams, Calloway, Sakho). Turnovers: VU 10. Personal Fouls: VU 18. Fouled out: None. Technical Fouls: Akanmu (1st – 1:57).