Down nine points just under 10 minutes into its first round Gulf South Conference Tournament game, Valdosta State remained composed.

The VSU men’s basketball team kept it together long enough to climb back in the lead for a 79-67 win against Christian Brothers.

“It was really a good win,” VSU coach Mike Helfer said. “I thought we came out and we were a little bit tight at the beginning and they were running the Princeton offense — kind of struggled the first 10 minutes.”

After falling behind 25-16, the Blazers stepped it up with 11-1 run throughout the next four minutes to tie the game at 27.

From when VSU started its run with 8:57 remaining in the half until the buzzer, the Blazers amassed a 19-5 run.

“I thought we did a great job of keeping focused (while behind) and fighting through it,” Helfer said.

During the run, VSU received two steals from Jon Banks played his biggest game of the season tallying 17 points, 11 rebounds and two steals.

“I thought some other guys stepped up tonight because Mike (Crain) didn’t play as well as he has in the past (10 points),” Helfer said. “I thought Banks stepped up and played very well.”

The Blazers would make the outcome less doubtful in their favor thanks to a flurry of points to end the first half.

Starting with 1:20 left to play in the half, Jon Rogers hit a jump shot followed 18 seconds later by another and then a layup by Mike Crain with 41 seconds to go before Herman Burge added a shot with four seconds remaining.

The 8-point run with 90 seconds remaining came when the Buccaneers started to wear down.

“They got really tired and made some sloppy passes,” Helfer said.

The Buccaneers finished the game with 15 turnovers including eight in the first half.

With the Buccaneers running a slower style offense, VSU forced the tempo and tried pushing the ball up the court offensively and spreading the defense the full length of the court.

“We really tried to push the tempo and pick them up full court,” Helfer said. “Defensively, we held them to 37 percent shooting.

“We wanted to keep the tempo. We thought that was really important.”

VSU also held the Buccaneers to 27 percent from three-point range while shooting 48 percent from the field itself.

Along with Banks, Burge also stepped scoring in Crain’s absence, recording 15 points including crucial free throw toward the end of the game.

Leading the way for the Blazers was once again senior center Jon Rogers, whose value went beyond his 24 point, 11 rebound, four block performance.

“He played very well, and I’ll tell you that he was great offensively but his 11 rebounds and his blocked shots were huge,” Helfer said. “Sometimes not the shots he blocks is so important, it’s the ones he alters or causes them to not take that’s so important.”

The Blazers second round opponent will be No. 1 seed Delta State 1:30 p.m. Friday.

Once again the Blazers will look to push the tempo against a team with three players tipping the scale at about 250 pounds apiece.

“They play a power game,” Helfer said. “We are going to try and counter it by making it an up-tempo game.”