Defense allows No. 5 Trailblazers to cruise to big Region 24 road win at Lincoln Trail

ROBINSON, Ill. – The Vincennes University men’s basketball team jumped up three spots in this week’s NJCAA Division I National rankings, getting back into the top-five at No. 5 this week.

VU’s first test since getting back into the top five was a short road trip to Robinson, Ill. to face off against the Lincoln Trail College Statesmen.

The Trailblazers were able to hold the Statesmen offense a bay, allowing just 52 points as VU came away with the wire-to-wire 93-52 victory.

Vincennes got off to a bit of a slow start offensively before breaking the game open with a 14-2 first half scoring run.

The Blazers would grab complete control of the game later in the first half with the help of a massive 15-0 scoring run to take a 35-14 lead.

The lead would hold as the Blazers headed into the halftime locker room break with a 42-20 advantage over the host Statesmen.

Vincennes looked to add on to their big halftime lead in the second half, outscoring Lincoln Trail 27-8 to begin the final 20 minute period to increase the lead to 69-28.

Lincoln Trail would cut into the deficit and get the VU lead down to 30 before VU responded back with a 13-0 scoring run to put the game away at 87-44.

VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin emptied his bench, not only getting all 11 active players into Wednesday night’s game, but every VU player who played Wednesday scored as VU cruised down the stretch to a big 93-52 victory over Lincoln Trail College.

“I just thought we played with more intensity, particularly defensively,” VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. “We don’t try to make it overly complicated. But we have some real set ideas about how we are supposed to go about what we are doing, particularly on that defensive end of the floor and tonight as the game went along, especially the last 10 minutes of the first half and start of the second half, I thought our defense was much more locked in. I thought some guys showed a ‘I’m not just hoping we stop you, I’m bringing this to you’ mentality and that’s what I want to see. I think you can see the energy in the guys when they did it, it just changes.”

“That’s what makes it fun to play,” Franklin added. “That’s the message that I put across to these guys all the time. I want them to have fun playing. That’s how you have fun playing and I thought tonight, we’ve still got a ways to go, you can see runs of that and you can see differences in players. Mike, early in the game, there was a little bit of doubt and a little bit of hope on his play. But then as it went along, he got locked in on the simple fundamentals that we do and he did them aggressively and you saw the difference in the level of his play and his enjoyment of play.”

“I think we’re seeing more of that,” Franklin said. “I thought you saw more of that on both ends of the floor. Going to the glass like we meant to go get it. Some guys came in there and got some big offensive rebounds where they weren’t going in there hoping that it comes to me, no we’re going to go get it. I thought we saw some guys diving on the floor and doing some things that we’ve traditionally done and maybe haven’t done quite as well this year. I thought I saw tonight some guys starting to take hold of those things and you see what it does. It feeds on itself. Guys start liking playing together and being out there. So that’s why I thought we won and that’s why we played well and I thought that’s why most of the guys that played tonight played well. Because they gave themselves a chance to play well, not perfect, but well. The energy and intensity was right. The score didn’t matter, it’s just how did we play and I thought we took another step forward tonight and another step forward into becoming a team that might contend for some big things.”

The Trailblazers were led by sophomore Ryan Oliver (Antioch, Tenn.) who ended with a team-high 16 points and six rebounds, 13 of his points coming in the first half.