VINCENNES, Ind – The No. 24 Vincennes University Trailblazers looked to exact a little bit of revenge Saturday night when VU hosted No. 20 Olney Central at the P.E. Complex.
Vincennes fell in the first matchup between these two teams earlier this season 79-70 in Olney, giving the Trailblazers their first loss of the season.
VU took control of the game early, leading by as many as 14 points in the first half, before the Blue Knights answered to cut the deficit.
A buzzer beating tip-in by Justin Archer sent the Blazers into the locker room with an eight-point lead, 32-24.
Vincennes continued to build on this momentum in the second half, sharing the ball well offensively and finding open space for shooters, as well as continuing to play an intense, stifling game on the defensive end of the floor.
The Trailblazers led this game wire-to-wire, finishing off the Blue Knights by the score of 76-63.
"I'm not going to call this an upset," VU Hall of Fame head coach Todd Franklin said. "We're Vincennes, we're not upsetting anybody, but it was good to get a quality win. The last couple of years Olney has been pretty good, but this was important for this team at this time for this reason. We needed to get this one because it gives us a legitimate chance to at least be the two-seed in the Region tournament, which even if you don't win the tournament gives you a chance at an at-large bid to the National tournament and gives us a chance to have two home games in the Region tournament."
"Catching Olney for the two seed, when we're a game behind them with eight to go, we like our chances, so this was a big win for us in the standings. For us, right now, it's all about us getting better. We're trying to turn the corner. We've won five out of six after the Logan game and the one loss at SWIC we had a chance. We're starting to get it a little, I told the guys in the locker room I've been trying to get them over the hump all year but I don't even think they knew what the hump was. Now they know that if they can gear it up and clinch their jaws that they have a chance to get over the top of the hump and have a good year. To be able to do the things we do out here, like get to Kansas and we know we have a chance for that right now. We don't have much margin for error, but we have a chance. We can play well enough to do it if we really improve over the next month."
VU was led offensively by Randy Tucker and Brevin Jefferson, who finished with 15 points each. Tucker added six rebounds and Jefferson dished out five assists and swiped two steals.
Christian Wells came off the bench to score 13 points and grab six rebounds, eight of his points coming in the first half.
Justin Archer and John Ukomadu were the final Trailblazers to reach double-figures, each finishing with 10 points, with Ukomadu grabbing six rebounds and two blocks.
"We've been working at moving the ball more, I thought we moved the ball well at Wabash. We didn't take very many bad shots. We had to pick and find our way through it because we don't have the electric guy that just gets it easy but we only turned it over nine times in that game. We moved it, got touches, we didn't shoot it great obviously, but because of that it gave us a chance and I thought tonight it was a continuation of that and probably another step forward."
"One big thing I thought happened tonight was Brevin Jefferson got more aggressive at putting the ball in the hole. He can do that. He's just been floundering with a little bit of a confidence problem when it came to scoring. He hasn't been turning the ball over so we had to keep him on the floor but he's been in the gym, he's gotten extra work and we've challenged him with it and it's just a thing freshmen go through and hopefully this is him coming out the other side. Because if he's an offensive threat, which he can be, it makes it so much easier for us. So that was big tonight that he was able to do that."
"We're just trying to find who we are. We've haven't done it all the way yet, but the puzzle has more piece put in now. It isn't all the way finished, but you can see what it's forming, so hopefully our guys get excited by it, hopefully it makes them more determined and hopefully we have two great practices to get ready for Lake Land because we don't have any margin for error but we also still have everything in front of us."
The Trailblazers will be on the road to begin next week as they take on Lake Land Wednesday, March 10. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. eastern.
"We just need to be more sharpe with intensity and guys hungry to get better. We're not going to recreate the wheel between now and Wednesday, we've got a pretty basic idea of what we need to do and we'll do some fine tuning but it's really just seeing our guys taking it and surging with it, which they are. I thought tonight we got some things going in that direction, but we're not there, so we just want to see that continuing. I think we know the road that we need to be on, we know the direction we need to go, now it's just about seeing us continue down that road as fast and as hard as we can."
