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.

Gaither would add three rebounds and three assists. Osei-Bonsu would finish with four rebounds and Dixon would end his night with six rebounds.

Sophomore Trenton Johnson (South Bend, Ind.) came off the bench to finish with nine points, three rebounds and three assists.

Sophomores Shilo Jackson (Indianapolis, Ind.) and Tasos Cook (Columbus, Ohio) each finished with eight points, with Jackson adding six rebounds and Cook dishing out six assists.

Freshman Ryan Oliver (Nashville, Tenn.) came off the bench and distributed the ball well, ending with a team-high seven assists, four points and three rebounds.

"I thought the bigs that came in in the second wave, I thought Michael sealed better tonight," Franklin said. "Obviously Victor had his moments offensively. I thought Karyiek, as it went along, got better. So I thought all three of the bigger, stronger, thicker guys that came in had an advantage but they actually went in and took advantage of that advantage."

"We had moments across the board," Franklin added. "I thought Kent had some good things, especially at the end. We put him in with about four minutes to go just to get him some work at the point guard spot. We've got to get more depth at the point guard with LeBron being out and Kent gives us another option there to utilize. He did that a lot last year in prep and we'll see what the best guys are to handle the big job we have coming up this weekend. Kent gets a lot of reps in practice but hasn't had as many reps in game at that position, so I thought he did a pretty good job of that late. I thought he played fairly well throughout the game."

"We could pick them all out in this game, they all had their moments," Franklin said. "They also probably had some moments with some brain cramps but we've got 10 freshmen. I don't think we look like freshmen. I don't think our bodies of guys look like freshmen but we still have 10 freshmen and a couple of the guys who aren't freshmen are still new. Wea re learning, so a night like tonight, there are certainly things that we can go back and talk about particularly defensively. I thought at times we didn't contain the ball as well. Indiana Elite Prep didn't finish some plays where they could have scored even more points. But there were moments where we did some things that we are supposed to and looked pretty good. We've got to go back tomorrow and Thursday and get really solid defensively and really push some things that we are really going to need to do to win this weekend."

The No. 23 Trailblazers will look ahead now to a very exciting weekend of Junior College basketball at the P.E. Complex.

Vincennes will play host to NJCAA Division I No. 11 John A. Logan and No. 16 Northeast Mississippi Community College, as well as Division II No. 5-ranked Macomb Community College Friday, Nov. 11 and Saturday, Nov. 12 for the annual McDonald's Classic.

John A. Logan will face off against Northeast Mississippi Friday at 5 p.m., with the Trailblazers taking on Macomb at 7 p.m. eastern.

The weekend classic will conclude on Saturday with John A. Logan facing Macomb at 5 p.m. and Vincennes hosting Northeast Mississippi at 7 p.m. eastern.

"I think we are going to have the best Junior College event in America this weekend," Franklin said. "That means we are going to play two really good teams and we are. We've got Macomb in here Friday, who is No. 5 in the country in Division II. Then we are going to play Northeast Mississippi who is just outside the top-15 in Division I. The fans are going to get to see another top-15 team this weekend in John A. Logan plus us who are now in the top-25."

"Obviously, I think everybody knows that Vincennes is on the way back," Franklin added. "I think wherever you see us now in the rankings, we intend on getting a whole lot higher. Our aspirations are a lot higher than just being in the top-25. We've spent about a decade in the top 5 and a lot of my time at Southeastern Illinois before I came here, we were in the top 5. So anywhere outside of the top 5 we are not comfortable with. So, this weekend is an opportunity for us to show that and we'll see if we do."

"I said on the radio and I'm going to put this everywhere, I am making a cry out to the community, I think we have had good crowds so far this season," Franklin said. "But this weekend we need to come as close to packing this place as we can. Because this is an opportunity to show the world that this is Vincennes. We've got the best event in the country in here. Best facilities and we are going to show that we have the best support and the best fans. I think this is a weekend where we need to show everybody that. It will definitely be worth everybody's time because we can't have a better field in here. There won't be a bad game. There will be two good games each night and the better atmosphere we put in here the better."

"I can't think of anything that is going on in town this weekend, there were a lot of things going on last weekend, but I can't think of anything that would be a better entertainment value, especially since the high school teams haven't started playing yet, then this weekend at VU," Franklin added. "We've got great support from the Nowakowski's to help put this on. We have worked really hard to put this field together. Teams of this caliber are very difficult to get because everybody is competing to fill out these weekends. But to put this together this way and to have a team like ours that I think is going to contend Nationally before it is all said and done, we need to get everybody out. I don't see any reason why, with what we have already had in here, everybody else that has had every other reason not to be in here that might come, come. Pack this place, make noise and I think it will be a heck of a good time in here if we do."

BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (110): Kris King 1-5 1-2 4, Caleb Johnson 6-9 2-2 15, Shilo Jackson 3-4 2-2 8, Tasos Cook 4-7 0-0 8, Kent King 5-7 1-1 13, Trenton Johnson 3-5 2-2 9, James Locke IV 1-3 0-0 2, Kale Gaither 4-9 1-2 10, Ryan Oliver 2-2 0-0 4, Michael Osei-Bonsu 5-5 0-0 10, Victor Lado 7-7 1-2 15, Dende Ceder 1-4 0-0 2, Karyiek Dixon 5-7 0-0 10, Team 47-74 10-13 110.

Indiana Elite Prep – 28   27 – 55

VU (4-0) – 55   55 – 110

Three-point goals: VU 6 (Ke. King 2, Kr. King, C. Johnson, T. Johnson, Gaither). Rebounds: VU 50 (C. Johnson 6, Jackson 6, Lado 6, Dixon 6). Assists: VU 31 (Oliver 7). Steals: VU 7 (C. Johnson 3). Blocked Shots: VU 7 (Lado 2). Turnovers: VU 17. Personal Fouls: VU 13. Fouled out: None.