No. 23 Trailblazers look strong in tune up before big weekend classic

VINCENNES, Ind. – The Vincennes University men’s basketball team jumped into the NJCAA Division I top-25 rankings Monday afternoon, coming in this week as the No. 23 team in the country.

The Blazers wasted little time flexing their top-25 muscle with a big 110-55 win over Indiana Elite Prep Tuesday night at the Physical Education Complex.

VU led the game wire-to-wire and really broke the game open with a 24-4 scoring run to take a 37-12 lead midway through the first half.

Vincennes would continue to add to their lead throughout the opening period with VU taking a 55-28 lead into the halftime break.

The Trailblazers continued to pile on the second half, using a late 17-0 scoring run to help finish the game as VU ended the night with a final score of 110-55.

“I thought there were some good things and some bad things,” VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. “Obviously, I thought we were a little sloppy with the ball at times. I think we tried to force things offensively. We’ve got to do the work and when we did the work, we were successful.”

“It was good to get everybody in the game,” Franklin added. “We almost had 12 guys play double-digit minutes tonight. Victor was just under at nine and a half minutes and Dende was a little further down. It’s just tough to get all of those big guys in there, but to get 12 guys to play double-figure minutes was really good.”

“We don’t look at those guys as guys down in the rotation, we really don’t,” Franklin said. “I think that all of our players are good players. I think all of our players can play. I think all of our players could be good players playing for somebody else. We just can’t play them all in a given night. But we trust that if these guys want to bad enough, they can be good players. I think everybody on this team is a good basketball player who needs to become a better basketball player. Like all of the guys who come to this level and all of the guys we have had here before. I think we’ve got a lot of them and we are still trying to figure out who the best ones are to play.”

VU was led offensively early on by sophomore Caleb Johnson (N. Preston, Nova Scotia) who had 10 of his 15 points in the first half. Johnson would also add six rebounds and a team-high three steals.

Freshman Victor Lado (Louisville, Ky.) came off the bench in the second half to close out the game with 15 points, six rebounds and two blocks.

Freshman Kent King (Washington, D.C.) ended his night with 13 points, five rebounds and three assists, while fellow freshmen Kale Gaither (Madisonville, Ky.), Michael Osei-Bonsu (Bolingbrook, Ill.) and Karyiek Dixon (London, UK) all finished with 10 points off the bench.