No. 6 Trailblazers use second-half comeback to defeat Kankakee

VINCENNES, Ind. – In a game where VU trailed for nearly three quarters of the game, the No. 6-ranked Trailblazers rallied back to defeat Kankakee College 75-65.

The first half did not go the Trailblazers' way, with VU finding themselves down by as many as nine points on their home court and heading into the locker room behind by six.

Vincennes was only able to score 29 points in the first half, while shooting a 31-percent clip.

Freshman guard Brandon Muntu and sophomore forward Randy Tucker helped bring the Blazers along through the early stages of the game, with duo combining to hit four of five three-point shots in the opening 20 minutes of play.

VU would slowly start eating into the Cavalier lead in the second-half. The Trailblazers would not get their first lead of the contest until the 11:56 mark in the second-half, after a Muntu elbow jumper put Vincennes on top.

Once the Blazers got the lead there was no looking back. VU would grow their lead to 11 points in just under five minutes of game action.

Kankakee would try to answer back, but the Trailblazers never surrendered the lead as VU came away with the 75-65 victory.

"I thought the intensity got better in the second half," VU Hall of Fame coach Todd Franklin said. "Once we found guys that were really trying to lock in, then we were able to find somethings offensively that worked. First half we didn't have anything that worked because we didn't have the right focus. The opportunities were there, we just weren't going to do it. In the second half, even in the first five minutes when we weren't gaining any ground, we were trying harder. When you give a team like Kankakee a lot more excitement and energy, sometimes that switch isn't going to get flipped right away, even when you're trying. You're going to have to grind and that's what happened."

"At about the 14-minute mark, we had some things we thought we could do offensively. We started getting some easier buckets. Our defense started to sit down and stopped the plays that they were getting in the first half and then it took off," Franklin added. "We outscored them by about 20 points in just six minutes, just because we caught that line."

"We could have put the game away instead of letting them hang around but we didn't finish off the defensive possessions. We were getting the stop, we forced misses and then uncharacteristically for us, we did not get the rebound. Most everything they got late in the game was because we didn't finish those possessions by getting the rebound. We'll have to do better on that, because that will cost you games as we go along."

"The second half was better and some guys who were playing didn't play. We were getting not very good efforts from a couple of guys and it's addition by subtraction sometimes. We finally found a group tonight where, everybody may not have been perfect, but they were giving you positive. They were in it competing and fighting and even though there were errors and things to clean up, there was at least that."

Sophomores Christian Wells and Jaidon Hunter along with Brandon Muntu, Justin Archer and Brevin Jefferson were the five on the floor that really helped drive the Trailblazer comeback.

Muntu would finish with a game-high 23 points on just 11 shots and a perfect four of four from behind the arc.

Archer and Wells came through in the score column and on the boards, with Archer finishing with 17 points and seven rebounds and Wells ending with 15 points and nine boards.

Jefferson and Hunter helped VU on the defensive end of the floor, with Hunter coming away with a pair of late-game blocks and Jefferson swiping a pair of steals to seal the VU home win.

"We are challenging Christian to find that grinding teeth intensity to get it done and he's getting it better," Franklin said. "I think there's still a couple more leaps to go, but it's getting better and offensively was better for us in the second half. He didn't do anything outside of what we think he can do."

"Muntu was better attacking the way we want him to. Sometimes he's too passive, or he's attacking somewhere that doesn't make sense. We want him on the aggressive mentality, but there's a way we want him to be aggressive and in the second half he started to do that and it gave us a spark."

"Archer is just going to bang around down low and get some things done. We've got to do some things to take the pressure off of him. We'll get a chance to do that as we coach this team up."

"I thought Brevin Jefferson was good, solid. We put him on the floor with Jaidon, Christian, Muntu, Ukomadu before he got into some foul trouble and Justin, I think that group of guys was who we relied on and even though Jaidon and Brevin didn't score a lot, they got some big shots, but they made us more solid defensively. They gave us a base where we could be competitive on the defensive end and those things won't show up in the stats sheet, but they will show up in the 'W' or 'L' column."

Vincennes will hit the road Monday, Feb. 1, as they begin Region 24 play against Olney Central. Tip-off is schedule for 8:30 p.m. eastern.

 "We just need more productive minutes," Franklin said. "We didn't play a lot of minutes tonight where we really played right and if we're going to win, we've got to play where we're not having the wasted minutes. Tonight, we won the second half 46 to 30 and I didn't think we played great, we just competed. The difference is in the second half we are trying with more focus and more intensity. That tells you how far off we were in the first half because Kankakee didn't quit playing."

"Offensively it looked like we might now be able to score any points, but the second half was a 92-point pace, so what did we do? Nothing really new, we just started doing what we're supposed to, with guys who went and got it done. If we're going to be any good at Olney the biggest thing is getting the right group of guys on the floor that's going to make sure we get as close to 40 good minutes of competing basketball as possible"