Trailblazers use second half scoring run to pick up win on home opener

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University Trailblazer men’s basketball team opened their 2022-23 campaign Tuesday night and picked up a 79-68 win over Kankakee Community College.

The Trailblazers battled the Cavaliers all night and trailed by five points early in the second quarter before racing back to grab the lead for good with a 17-3 scoring run.

Vincennes got off to a slow start in front of the home crowd and found themselves in a battle in the opening half of the season.

The lead changed hands eight times in the first 20 minutes of play and the Trailblazers overcame 11 first half turnovers to hold a 39-37 lead at the break.

Kankakee opened the second half strong and quickly took the lead back from the host Blazers and built a 51-46 advantage.

Coming out of a timeout Vincennes looked to take their game to another level with an immediate 9-0 scoring run as part of a larger 17-3 run to put the Trailblazers ahead 63-54.

Vincennes would hold on to this lead and grow their advantage to as many as 16 before the Cavaliers attempted a late comeback with a 5-0 run.

The late scoring run was too little too late for Kankakee as Vincennes came away with the season-opening win 79-68 at the P.E. Complex.

“I think this is a good win,” VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. “We are way away from where we want to be, but I think this is a good starting point. I think Kankakee is a good team. I thought they played well. I thought they played hard. I think Kankakee will be a team that will win around 20 games. They won 19 last year and I bet they will go over 20 this year and they are going to be a problem for some people.”

“We had to up our game as it went along to get away from them,” Franklin added. “We started to stop their straight-line penetration. That was big. We were letting their guard go to his right hand, which is an early season thing that we can’t have. In the second half when he couldn’t do that, we made it hard. Not only did we stop them, but we turned some of those stops into easier buckets for us. Our defense started turning into some offense and that was why.”

“Kankakee stayed in the game because we had too many turnovers,” Franklin said. “Our turnovers weren’t because of something Kankakee was doing to us. No disrespect to Kankakee, most of our turnovers were because we need to get sharper. We are a young team early in the season and some of the things I told them were going to happen did tonight. These guys aren’t going to be able to make those shoulder-level passes at this level.”

“The turnover spread at 19 to 11, if we clean that up to close to being even, we might have been looking at a 20-point win,” Franklin added. “I think Kankakee played really well. They stretch you all over the floor because everybody can hit shots. You have to guard everybody out to 25 feet. So, it was a good game for us, no question. It’s a good start. We’ll see what we learn from it going into this weekend when we ‘ve got two more D-I opponents. I liked our energy and I think that eventually this team will be a really good ball club. It took a pretty good team to beat Kankakee tonight. That’s our starting point, you can see where we are at, we are good enough to beat pretty good teams. I don’t know if we are good enough to beat Hutch-level teams right now, but I think we can get there.”

VU was led offensively by a big night from sophomore Shilo Jackson (Indianapolis, Ind.) who picked up right where he left off last season with 17 points, seven rebounds and five blocks.

Sophomore guard Tasos Cook (Columbus, Ohio) played well in his Trailblazer debut to finish with 11 points and five assists.

Sophomore Caleb Johnson (N. Preston, Nova Scotia) came off the bench to reach double-figures, ending with 11 points and three blocks.

Freshmen Kris King (Washington, D.C.) and Michael Osei-Bonsu (Bolingbrook, Ill.) had big nights on the glass for VU, with King leading the Blazers with 11 boards and seven points and Osei-Bonsu ending with 10 rebounds, six coming on the offensive glass.

Freshman Kale Gaither (Madisonville, Ky.) came off the bench to put together a very solid performance of eight points and a team-high six assists.