INA, Ill. – The No. 4-ranked Vincennes University Trailblazers opened their postseason play Monday afternoon at the 2024 Region 24/Central District Tournament hosted by Rend Lake College.
The Blazers earned the No. 1 seed in the tournament after winning the 2023-24 Region 24 regular season championship and began tournament play against the No. 9 seed Lincoln Trail Statesmen.
Vincennes jumped out on the Statesmen early and were able to lead the entire way as the Blazers picked up the 80-54 victory and advance to Wednesday night's semi-finals.
VU got off to an excellent start Monday afternoon, quickly jumping out to a 15-2 lead over the Statesmen.
The Trailblazers would continue to add to this lead with a 10-2 scoring run to increase the lead to 30-9 over Lincoln Trail.
The Vincennes lead would grow to 29 late in the first half, before the Statesmen closed out the opening period of play by scoring the final five points as Vincennes headed into the locker room leading 44-20.
The Blazers kept the foot on the gas in the second half, opening the second half on a 19-8 scoring run to put the lead at 63-28.
Vincennes would get their largest lead of the game at 75-36 before VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin put the reserves in down the stretch.
Lincoln Trail would cut into the deficit in the final few minutes of the game but were unable to completely overcome the big VU lead as The Trailblazers closed out the quarterfinal matchup with an 80-54 victory over the Statesmen.
"I thought we were pretty good the first 17 or 18 minutes of the first half," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "We kind of played a bad final two or three minutes of the first half, but the first 17, I thought our defensive intensity was really good. I thought our on-ball defense was really good and it just kind of took them out of it."
"Ryan was really good against Huttenlocker," Franklin added. "Dink did a really great job on Bell and such a great job that he kind of swallowed him up with those long arms. Defense turned into offense on several plays because they just had nowhere to go."
"When our intensity was really right during those stretches, we were really dominant on defense," Franklin said. "That was the story of the day and then we hit open jumpers. Everybody is going to rely on us not hitting open jumpers. So if we're hitting open jumpers and our defensive intensity is right, we are going to be a problem. We've been that for the last six games now. We have approached the game differently these last six games and we've been flirting with that all year. We made some changes, some real changes, some structural changes but mostly just attitude changes on how we are going to compete. If we continue to do it, I like our chances against anybody. We've done it for six games now and you've seen the results. We've been pretty dominant these last six games, so hopefully we will continue to do that."
"That was the story of the day," Franklin id. "I just thought we played pretty hard and pretty focused for most of time and defensively took them out."
Vincennes was able to spread the ball out offensively against Lincoln Trail, led by freshman Lebron Thomas (Bishopville, S.C.) who connected on four of six shots from three-point range to finish with a team-high 16 points and three assists.
Sophomore Ryan Oliver (Antioch, Tenn.) also scored in double-figures, moving the ball around to finish with 14 points, a team-high seven assists and three steals.
Freshman Damarien Yates (Somerville, Tenn.) filled up the stats sheet Monday afternoon, ending with 11 points, four steals, three rebounds, a pair of assists and two blocks.
Sophomore Kent King (Washington, D.C.) came off the bench to score in double-figures, finishing his day with 11 points, four assists and three steals.
The Vincennes defense stepped up big against the Statesmen ending the game with 18 steals as a team.
"The steal number is tremendous because we don't gamble on defense," Franklin said. "We just get after you and play solid and that means that our defense has really made you turn sideways. Our hands are active while not gambling. When we get 18 steals, other teams might scramble around and they give stuff up because of it, but that's not our concept or how we do it. So if we're getting 18 steals, that means we were really getting after it and being solid and not giving them any easy access. I thought that was true for the first 17 minutes and probably the first 10 minutes of the second half. During those 27 minutes, we played the kind of basketball that we are going to have to play if we are going to contend for a National Championship. If we can do that for 40 minutes, then we are going to be there with a chance and that's what we are trying to build to."
The Trailblazers advance to the Central District Semi-Finals Wednesday, March 13 at 6 p.m. eastern at Rend Lake College in Ina, Ill. and will face the No. 4 seed Lake Land College and No. 5 seed John A. Logan College quarterfinal.
"We're not doing anything differently than what we have been doing," Franklin said. "We've been playing a certain way, with a certain attitude and the guys can take away from that, it's been working. We made the corrections after the game at Logan and those corrections have worked and if we get beat, we are going to get beat that way. As long as that's true, we can live with it."
"All I want them to take away is, just a continuation of what we've been doing," Franklin added. "Northing more. Nothing less. We are not trying to make it complicated. I was proud of the 27 minutes that we played today. The 27 minutes that we really locked in is how we are supposed to play and it's hard to do. We are going to be asked to get close to 40 minutes of that ta some point. Our guys know it and what they could take away from today is, when we didn't do it, we immediately were not as good. But when we did, we were really hard to handle."
"Jitters and all of that, we've been playing big time games all year," Franklin said. "We've been playing the best teams with high expectations, we should be nothing but excited right now.We're in the big arenas now. Now it's time to go."
VINCENNES BOX SCORE
Vincennes (80) – Damarien Yates 3-5 5-6 11, Ryan Oliver 5-10 1-2 14, Lebron Thomas 5-7 2-2 16, Michael Osei-Bonsu 3-7 0-0 6, Karyiek Dixon 2-7 1-2 5, Mathieu Nader-Kalombo 2-2 0-1 5, Alphonse Muteba 2-2 0-0 4, Kris King 1-2 2-4 4, Kent King 5-9 0-1 11, Victor Lado 1-2 2-2 4, Vilhelm Bodingh 0-0 0-0 0, Team 29-53 13-20 80.
Lincoln Trail – 20 34 – 54
VU (28-3, 15-2) – 44 36 – 80
Three-point goals: VU 9 (L. Thomas 4, Oliver 3, Nader-Kalombo, Ke. King). Rebounds: VU 26 (Osei-Bonsu 7). Assists: VU 21 (Oliver 7). Steals: VU 18 (Yates 4, Dixon 4). Blocked Shots: VU 5 (Yates 2, Dixon 2). Turnovers: VU 13. Personal Fouls: VU 16. Fouled out: None.