MATTOON, Ill. – The No. 7-ranked Vincennes University Trailblazers clinched the 2025 NJCAA Division I Region 24 regular season championship Saturday afternoon for the second consecutive season with a big come from behind win over Lake Land College in Mattoon.
The Trailblazers fell behind early and trailed at the halftime break but were able to steady the ship with a big second half comeback to finish off a 92-86 victory over the Lakers and clinch the No. 1 seed in the 2025 Region 24 Men's Basketball tournament, hosted by Rend Lake College in Ina, Ill. on Monday, March 10.
VU got off to a hot start Saturday evening, jumping out to an early 11-5 advantage over the host Lakers.
Lake Land College would answer back and caught fire shooting from the floor, matching shot for shot with the Trailblazers.
Lake Land was able to use a late 6-0 scoring run in the first half to break away from a tie game and would hold on to a 48-44 lead over the Trailblazers at the break.
Coming out in the second half Vincennes looked to work their way back in front and were able to chip away at the deficit before regaining the lead at 69-68 midway through the second half.
The Trailblazers would increase their lead to six at 81-75 before Lake Land answered back to cut the deficit to 83-79.
Vincennes was able to run the clock, hit a couple of clutch three-point shots and connect at the free throw line down the stretch however as VU closed out the game by the final score of 92-86, giving the Blazers their 17th consecutive victory.
Vincennes was led offensively by freshman Travelle Bryson (Anderson, S.C.) who kept the Blazers going in a back-and-forth shootout of a first half, scoring 20 of his 28 points in the first 20 minutes of play.
Bryson also collected his second consecutive double-double Saturday evening, grabbing 10 rebounds in the game as well.
Sophomore Bryan Akanmu (Paris, France) also picked up a double-double Saturday, scoring 22 points, 18 of which coming in the second half, while also grabbing 11 rebounds and taking a team-high two steals.
Sophomore and 2024 NJCAA All-American Lebron Thomas (Bishopville, S.C.) was the third VU scorer to surpass 20 points in the game, finishing his night with 21 points, eight assists and four rebounds.
Sophomore Hussein Elmaraghy (Cairo, Egypt) scored in double figures Saturday with 10 points and three rebounds.
"We made it a little tough on ourselves because we didn't tag Tatum early and we let him get going," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "He had a fabulous half. 25 points, nine of 10 from the floor, seven of seven from three, that's pretty good. That's a big punch that we took."
"Luckily, at the same time Travelle was throwing a big punch back," Franklin added. "If we hadn't had Travelle, we would have been in trouble at halftime. Second half I thought we played better. They were in front of me so I was able to control it a little bit offensively. I thought we broke the zone down a little bit better. Got it inside more. Bryan had a bunch of points. He had 22 and Hussein had 10, so we were getting inside action. We just struggled because we were having a hard time finding someone on the other corner and we can't afford that. We're not made that way. We need them on both sides, so we really had to pick and fight to get through it."
"Lebron came up offensively in the second half," Franklin said. "We only had eight turnovers in the game, scored 92 points, on the road this time of year against a team that has been in the polls this season that was hitting us with the kind of punch that they were hitting with. When you're hitting shots today like he was hitting them, that gets everybody a little excited and now you know you are going to get their best shot. But I thought we did what we had to do."
"We grinded it out and there are things that we obviously have to get better," Franklin added. "I thought our transition defense wasn't good enough. We've got to tag guys. We're not going to have many guys that go seven for seven like that but he's got to shoot them in the basket, those are hard. But it's a lesson learned that you need to guard hard enough to where they don't make shots, especially early. But we won the rebounding battle big. Had low turnovers. We scored the ball inside pretty good. Bryson, Thomas and Akanmu had big games offensively for us."
"It's a huge win, we're 13-0 in the Region," Franklin said. "I don't think people have any idea how hard that is. We're now 30-2 in the last two years against Region teams. We came out of COVID and said we can get back to being us and I think we have. It's back to back regular season titles. We got the tournament title last year, we'll see what we do now. It's another big step closer to being in Hutch."
The Trailblazers will look to keep this winning streak going as they get set to hit the road again Wednesday, Feb. 26 when VU takes on Olney Central College in Olney, Ill. at 8 p.m. eastern.
Vincennes will then return home to the P.E. Complex for the final two games of the 2024-25 regular season, when VU hosts Wabash Valley College Saturday, March 1 at 7 p.m. on Blaze to a Community Cure Night and Good Samaritan Night at the P.E. Complex.
The Trailblazers will then close out the 2024-25 regular season Tuesday, March 4 when VU hosts Kaskaskia College at 7 p.m. eastern on Sophomore Night.
"I want to see people," Franklin said. "We've got three ball games left where people can watch us. Olney is only 35 minutes away, you can get to that game. We have a huge event Saturday. Cancer Awareness and Good Samaritan Night. We've got Wabash Valley coming in. It will be a great game, the Women's game should be a good game too. I think Coach Hartsfield has done a great job and has got that team playing so much better."
"What if you could go back to 2019 and you could go and watch the last three regular season games of the 2019 National Champion team?" Franklin added. "And you didn't go. If you are reading this or listening to this, would you go if you could do it all over again knowing that they were going to win it? Well, we're one of the teams that can win it. So I'd be out there in that gym these last three games and make some noise and supporting this team because I think they are worth it."
VINCENNES BOX SCORE
VINCENNES (92): Bryan Akanmu 10-13 2-3 22, Lebron Thomas 6-13 7-8 21, Travelle Bryson 12-19 0-0 28, Dayton Williams 1-5 0-0 3, Hussein Elmaraghy 3-5 4-6 10, Christian Andrews 0-2 0-0 0, Meyoh Swansey 1-4 0-0 2, Jalen Calloway 1-4 -00 3, Michael Cooper 0-2 1-2 1, Darstin Onye 0-1 0-0 0, Ali Sakho 0-0 0-0 0, Kenaz Ochogwu 1-2 0-2 2, Team 35-70 14-21 92.
VU (23-3, 13-0) – 44 48 – 92
Lake Land – 48 38 – 86
Three-point goals: VU 8 (Bryson 4, Thomas 2, Williams, Calloway). Rebounds: VU 40 (Akanmu 11). Assists: VU 27 (Thomas 8). Steals: VU 3 (Akanmu 2). Blocked Shots: VU 5 (Thomas 2, Bryson 2). Turnovers: VU 8. Personal Fouls: VU 19. Fouled out: None.