Trailblazers fall to late scoring run at Wabash Valley

MT. CARMEL, Ill. – The Vincennes University Trailblazers led most of their game Wednesday night at Wabash Valley, looking to pick up a big road win to help boost the Blazers position in the Region 24 standings.

The Warriors were aided by a 16-3 scoring run to help push Wabash Valley ahead with five minutes to play as WVC came away with the 66-59 win over Vincennes.

Vincennes again got off to a slow start and quickly fell behind with a couple of early Wabash Valley baskets before the Trailblazers rallied back with a 13-0 run to jump out to a 10 point lead midway through the first half.

Wabash Valley would rally back with a 13-3 run of their own to even the score at 22-all before Vincennes closed out the first half with a 10-2 scoring run to take an eight point lead into the break.

The Trailblazers put a stamp on a hard fought first half when freshman Thow James Biel (Calgary, Alberta) raced down the floor to send home a dunk at the buzzer to give the Blazers a 32-24 at the half.

Freshman Darrius Davis (Pittsburgh, Pa.) helped kick start the Trailblazer offense in the first period, scoring 16 points in the opening period.

Vincennes looked to keep Wabash Valley at arm's length throughout most of the second half, with the Blazers responding with a scoring run every time the Warriors started to get close.

The Wabash Valley crowd started to pick up and cheer on their home team late as the Warriors battled all the way back from down 10 in the second half to take a 54-53 lead with just over five minutes to play.

Vincennes would look to respond but could never regain the lead as the Warriors closed out the game with a 12-6 run to win 66-59 over the Blazers.

"We didn't respond," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. "That's the bottom line. We couldn't find anybody to respond. TreVon Smith for Wabash Valley responded. Wabash Valley wanted the ball worse than us. That was it."

"Wabash Valley didn't have any new answer for our zone, they didn't really have anything to get them going other than TreVon putting his head down and attacking the basket," Franklin added. "We had a much better chance of stopping him driving in our zone than we did playing man-to-man. The zone was working and it would have continued to work if we had hunkered down, took it personally and get our job done and we just didn't do it."

"We had rebounds that were available. It's just a lack of effort and discipline. We should have gotten a long rebound when they had two seconds left on the shot clock and we were down two with about a minute to go. The game is still on the line. There wasn't anything strategically that we needed to do differently but I look up and I've got one of our guys out of position on the rebound and then the ball goes right to the area that he should have been in and Wabash Valley wasn't in any better position to get it either, but they just ran and beat us to the ball. We had the advantage twice on rebounds late and they beat us to the ball and I think that best epitomizes the second half of the game."

"Tonight, was a game where I thought we had a great chance to win but the truth of the matter is, we didn't win the game because we didn't deserve to win the game. The game was there to be won and had we deserved to win, had we earned it, we would have done it tonight. That's very tough for me and that's very tough for our basketball program to take. The guys who fought for 24 years to establish what our basketball family is, tonight was absolutely the polar opposite. I just don't understand the lack of discipline and the lack of fight."

"There are times when you need to play hard and then there are times when you really need to hunker down and take on a challenge and that's the moment when we don't really respond. The game is on the line and it's right there to be had and even in that moment, we didn't take on the challenge. To be in February in a meaningful game that could really help us here, it wasn't that we couldn't get it done tonight, it's that we didn't. It all falls on me. But that's not what we want for our basketball family and that's not what we've had for 24 years. I think we can beat this team and I think we can beat most of these team and I think the opportunities are there but some of it is guys not getting in the gym and working."

Darrius Davis was slowed offensively in the second half as he finished with a career-high 19 points, while also grabbing eight rebounds.

Freshman Brevin Jefferson (Indianapolis, Ind.) finished in double figures, ending his night with 14 points and a team-high four assists.

Thow James Biel was the third and final Trailblazer scorer to hit double figures, ending with 10 points on the night.

Freshman Devawn White (Montreal, Quebec) came off the bench to be a force on the glass for VU. The 6-foot-2 forward led the Blazers with 10 rebounds, four of which coming on the offensive glass.

"Wabash Valley went zone in the second half and we had Darrius who played well against the man-to-man defense in the first half, struggle in the second against it," Franklin said. "Even with that, we were still able to get Brevin wide open shots off a screen but he just wouldn't shoot it."

"In the second half I thought we were able to get the ball to Shilo whenever we wanted but when we did he didn't want it," Franklin added. "I don't know why. He's coming off of several 20-plus point games but he just didn't want it. The spots were there and we were able to run actions to get people open, we just didn't have anyone who could make plays. TreVon Smith made plays for Wabash Valley. He was making tougher plays than what we had, we just couldn't stop him from taking over the game and I didn't think we had anybody that wanted to step up and take that challenge."

"I thought Devawn gave us some good things at Lewis & Clark Monday and I thought he gave us some good things tonight. I thought he was fighting and battling. He's a little limited offensively and he really wasn't the guy getting broken down on attacks in the zone. Devawn got on the offensive glass and he was trying and even when we couldn't get it, it was because he's 6-2 and he just couldn't get up there enough to get the ball. But he's making an effort and he's playing inside his limitations. He didn't make bad plays and he didn't turn the ball over. We took him out late in the game to get Thow in there for offense and it just doesn't happen."

VU will have little time to look to recover after falling Wednesday night as Vincennes will return to the P.E. Complex Thursday, Feb. 17 to host Southwestern Illinois College from Belleville, Ill. Tip-off time for that game is set for 7 p.m. eastern.

"We'll play again tomorrow," Franklin said. "I thought we were in position tonight to get it done and I don't know that we will be able to do much more than that to get these guys in position in any of these games against teams in our Region that are pretty good. So these guys are going to have to be more discipline and do what we're telling them. Because a lot of the mistakes are when they just don't do what we're telling them."

"Then we have to do a better job to hunker down and not let somebody take it to them and they have to have a better effort when they are not around me, being in the gym and working to get their skills better because at some point we are going to have to have someone who can put the ball in the hole," Franklin added. "Or make the plays that are there because they are there. I'll keep trying to put them into positions. I'm going to keep challenging them. I'm going to keep holding them to the standards that we've had in the past. But at some point they have got to want that standard. I think if they had tried to live up to that standard tonight we would have won. I don't think we had to be perfect, I just think we had to do that."

"I'm not happy with it, but I'm not happy with myself that I let our team be in this situation. But I'll come out here and try again tomorrow to fight. Like always, I'll try to put a plan together. I'll try to tell them the right things and I'll try to establish the intensity level we need to be at to get it done. But they've got to want that intensity level, because that intensity level has been what has gotten us to being arguably the best basketball family in JuCo over the past 24 years. I think it's hard to argue that if we were going about it, if we were going about our business like we have in the past, we would have won this game and our team would be in a position to make a little run here. But at some point our way has got to be the way or they are going to finish out the year just like this."

"Credit Wabash Valley. Credit TreVon Smith. Credit their effort. They got it done and they deserved to win. I'm sad to say that we didn't deserve that win. We could have deserved it. We had an opportunity to deserve it. But we did in the end and I think the team that did won, so kudos to Coach Carpenter and his staff."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (59): Thow James Biel 4-13 2-2 10, Ketaan Wyatt 1-2 0-0 3, Brevin Jefferson 6-11 2-4 14, Darrius Davis 7-10 4-7 19, Shilo Jackson 2-6 0-2 4, Trenton Johnson 0-4 0-0 0, Devawn White 1-5 1-2 3, Grant Brown 2-2 0-0 6, Team 23-53 9-17 59

VU (10-17, 7-9) – 32  27 – 59

Wabash Valley – 24  42 – 66

Three-point goals: VU 4 (Brown 2, Davis, Wyatt). Rebounds: VU 30 (White 10). Assists: VU 8 (Jefferson 4). Steals: VU 2 (Davis 2). Blocked shots: VU 3 (Jackson 3). Turnovers: VU 10. Personal Fouls: VU 16. Fouled out: None. Technical Fouls: WVC (Warren).