Strong second half leads Trailblazers past Volunteer State C.C.

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University Trailblazers hit the floor for the first time Saturday night after the two-week Holiday break and found themselves in a tough defensive battle with Volunteer State Community College from Gallatin, Tenn.

The Trailblazers were able to regain composure in the second half and outscored the Pioneers 49-24 on their way to securing a 75-51 victory inside the Physical Education Complex.

Vincennes got off to a fast start Saturday night and looked to be off and running early after the Pioneers scored the opening five points of the game, VU answered with a 17-3 scoring run to take a 17-8 lead.

The Pioneers would work their way back with a late first half 12-1 scoring run to regain the lead, which would hold going into halftime at the Trailblazers headed into the locker room trailing Volunteer State C.C. 27-26.

The Trailblazers looked to come out of the locker room firing, scoring the first seven points of the second half before building their first double digit lead of the night with a 16-4 scoring run to take a 54-43 lead.

VU kept adding to this lead with a 10-0 scoring run and were able to cruise down the stretch and come away with their sixth straight victory with a 75-51 win over the Pioneers.

"I think we were pretty similar in both halves on the defensive end," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "The numbers were about the same, there really wasn't a whole lot of difference. But in the second half we had some solidity and all of a sudden you scored 49. The first half, I don't know what you call that but it certainly wasn't basketball."

"We can attribute that to the break or do whatever we want with it but it wasn't very good," Franklin added. "If we have a half like that at SWIC, we might as well just go home at halftime. But we got some that got a little more solid in the second half and the results showed it. We scored 49 points and the shooting percentages are completely different, it was far from perfect but at least it was an effort to play something that resembles the basketball that we've practiced."

"But on the defensive end and basically on the glass, I thought we were fine all night," Franklin said. "I don't know how good we actually did but the results were good all night. We got stops all night. We handled the glass on both ends, I felt like, pretty well all night. I'll go back and watch it to see if that's really true but I didn't think that was an issue. I told the guys at halftime that they shot 10 for 34 and we outrebounded them and we're down one. That just tells you how bad we were on the offensive end. Then when you flip around and we score 49 in the second half, it wasn't like we put in a whole new world at halftime."

"I did get a little more control of things in the second half," Franklin added. "Get a little more totally simplified and here's what we're going to do. As long as we stayed with that and stayed true to that, we were pretty successful. In the second half the results were fine, I don't know if we will get those results against SWIC Wednesday night, we are going to have to play better than that to have a 49 point half. But we'll see what happens. We'll see who comes to work and tries to respond to this and be better because we will have to be a lot better Wednesday."

The Trailblazers were led offensively by freshman Dayton Williams (Louisville, Ky.) who finished off his third double-double this season with 16 points and 11 rebounds, while also adding a team-high four steals and three assists.

Sophomore and 2024 NJCAA All-American Lebron Thomas (Bishopville, S.C.) was the second VU scorer in double figures, scoring 13 of his 15 points in the second half, while also adding four assists and three rebounds.

Freshman Ali Sakho (Toronto, Ontario) had a big game off the bench Saturday night for the Trailblazers, finishing with eight points, seven rebounds and a team-high four steals.

Freshman Chrisitan Andrews (Asheville, N.C.) played some big minutes down the stretch and finished his night with nine points and three assists.

Freshman Travelle Bryson (Anderson, S.C.) was able to provide a spark for the Trailblazers off the bench as well with six points and eight rebounds, while sophomore Bryan Akanmu (Paris, France) added nine rebounds and a team-high five assists in the game.

"I thought Ali was the star of the game for us," Franklin said. "In terms of playing up to what we think he should do right now with where he is. He's still getting back into shape, he's still not there but he's a lot closer than he was. He's had a little time to knock off some rust. His numbers are good, eight points and seven rebounds playing about half a game right now. Those are good numbers but I thought defensively, they couldn't do anything with him and he ended up with four steals because they tried to throw over the top of him four times and four times he said, well that's not going to happen. Because he will pin you down and not let you walk him up the lane, he's strong enough and knows how to do it without fouling and he's a lot longer than you think he is when he stretches that arm out there. Those are big plays. He had four individual stops right there and that's something we haven't had. He's brought something to the table here and I think that if we can ever get Kenaz to want to rebound the ball and just play simple but assertive, those two guys can probably give us a good 40 minutes at some point when we get it all back and in tune here."

"A lot of time in the first half of the year Kenaz wasn't ready to play at all," Franklin added. "And Ali wasn't available. I think Hussein is doing better in practice if we have to go there. So I think the three of them can handle that spot. I thought Ali was the star of the game because he gave us something that was very solid that we needed and had a real impact on the game."

"Dayton had some moments tonight," Franklin said. "Travelle gave us some things off the bench. Christian was a little bit better in the second half with some things off the bench. Lebron was better in the second half. And the results, if you took the first half, they were awful. Then if you just look at the second half you would say that's pretty good and there's a reason. Just be solid. See the game, be solid, play within what we want you too and there are plenty of plays that happened in there. When you get out of kilter, it tends to not work out so well. But we can say it's because we just got back, haven't played in two weeks, it's hard to be sharpe."

"I also thought that they sped us up a little bit because their guard is quick," Franklin added. "He tried to get under us and in the first half with it being the first game back it probably sped us and got us out of our rhythm offensively. Because we were not in game mode enough to be intense enough, focused enough to handle that and in the second half we were. Again, it's one of those deals where you can't do it, it's that you didn't. They brought something that you had to answer a question with and in the first half we weren't prepared to answer the question well enough. But obviously we could because we did in the second half. We've got to put 40 minutes together from here on out because it's all Region games. They are all big. We knocked the rust off tonight and hopefully we knocked enough of it off to where we can go on the road and play well."

The Trailblazers will look to keep this momentum going as they get set for a tough Region 24 road test Wednesday, Jan. 8 when VU travels to Belleville, Ill. to take on Southwestern Illinois College at 8 p.m. eastern.

Vincennes will then return home to the P.E. Complex Saturday, Jan. 11 when VU hosts Shawnee Community College at 4 p.m. eastern.

"SWIC is a hard place to play," Franklin said. "It's a three-plus hour bus trip away, you get off the bus and you play. NCAA Division I teams don't do that because it's tough. Then you have to go and play somebody that is usually good. Coach Harrington has won a million games. They've got good players, they play hard and it's a different environment. They are good and he does a good job and they are challenging. They've won a lot of games, so anytime that you are going to try to beat a good team at their place after getting off the bus three hours, it's hard. They usually press and trap and do some things, change defenses and do some things that are challenging particularly early. Usually by the second or third time in the tournament we play them, we've gotten a little more acclimated to that and that has shown over the years."

"But that first time when you go over there, especially this time of year, it's a very, very tough game and again, for us to have a chance to win, we'll have to play better than we did in the second tonight," Franklin added. "We will have to grow from that and play better than that then we'll have a chance. If we play anything resembling the first half tonight, then anybody who wants to listen to the game or watch the stream will be able to turn it off pretty quickly. They are playing well lately. They played well the last three or four games of the first semester and then blew out Lewis & Clark today, so they will be ready for us. Hopefully we can get into the gym here in the next couple of days and get ready for them."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (75): Bryan Akanmu 2-9 0-0 4, Michael Cooper 1-7 5-6 7, Kenaz Ochogwu 4-6 0-2 8, Lebron Thomas 5-11 4-5 15, Dayton Williams 6-11 1-2 16, Christian Andrews 3-4 2-2 9, Jalen Calloway 1-4 0-0 2, Travelle Bryson 2-4 2-2 6, Ali Sakho 3-5 2-3 8, Team 27-61 16-22 75.

Volunteer State – 27   24 – 51

VU (12-3, 2-0) – 26   49 – 75

Three-point goals: VU 5 (Williams 3, Thomas, Andrews). Rebounds: VU 50 (Williams 11). Assists: VU 19 (Akanmu 5). Steals: VU 10 (Williams 4, Sakho 4). Blocked Shots: VU 3 (Ochogwu, Williams, Bryson). Turnovers: VU 15. Personal Fouls: VU 14. Fouled out: Bryson.