Prediction and Preview: SFA opens conference play in Hammond

The Game: SFA Men's Basketball at Southeastern Louisiana
The Time: Thursday, December 28th, 7:00 p.m. (CT)
The Broadcast: LionSports.net (streaming video $), Lumberjacks Sports Network (radio)

Let Southland Conference play begin! Stephen F. Austin, favorites in the league, start their Southland run with a road contest at Southeastern Louisiana, the team picked third. The Lions boast one of the more talented rosters among the thirteen men's basketball teams but have struggled to put it together offensively at times.

SELA stumbles into this contest just a bit having dropped their last three games. Below the surface, though, only one of those, a one-point setback to Grambling State (more on this later) could really be considered a bad loss.

When all cylinders are firing, the Lions have a really good basketball team. When they get in their own heads offensively, it can also be exceptionally ugly. Which version of the team SFA gets on Thursday is a mystery to anyone.

Three storylines to follow...

Ty Charles' jump shot is finally appearing. Health has been a major struggle for SFA's senior leader and the lack of practice time has been a burden as he's made his return over the last month. Charles has been great in his limited practice time but his shooting in scored games has been a grind to say the least. 

He's one of the best players on the floor, whenever he's there, but his early numbers certainly don't tell that story: 5.4 points, 37% from the floor, 25% from three point range, in 20 minutes on average. Not yet in game shape, Charles' shot all but abandons him as soon as his legs get tired. Give credit to him for finding other ways to contribute with 14 assists, 10 steals and 19 very timely rebounds in seven appearances.

Also, be very encouraged by what we saw against Arlington Baptist. More than his season high 14 points, including a couple triples on five of eight shooting, it was how he scored them. We know Ty can throw up a mean layup, but, finally, his mid-range jumper and outside shot found more than the side of the rim.

Look for that trend to continue in Hammond.

Southeastern keeps toying with the starting lineup. The one thing the Lions lack this year is a prolific scoring threat. They have a handful of good offensive players but, besides electric point guard Marlain Veal, no guaranteed producers. Early in the season, in the image of head coach Jay Ladner's defense-first approach, SELA's two best scorers (outside of Veal) often came off the bench.

Slow starts have been a problem for the Lions and, lately, senior transfer Jordan Capps has had some starting opportunities. He's done fairly well with them, mostly, but remains the most consistent producer in a wildy inconsistent offensive unit overall. This is all good news for SFA, who prides itself in disruption. If you unleash a half-court press on an offense that already battles a certain amount of confusion, it can be an ugly outcome.

The Lions have allowed offensive struggles to mess with their defense. To be fair, non-conference comparisons are very difficult when strength of schedule has such wide discrepancies between teams. With that in mind, though, Southeastern Louisiana, which has hung its hat on elite defense in the Southland Conference over the last couple of years, ranks 275th of 351 in defensive efficiency among Division 1 members this season. Their 1.071 points allowed per possession ranks worse than that of Central Arkansas, the Southland program who has historically forgotten that defense is part of basketball.

If you watch the Lions play, you'll see the scoring droughts frustrate them on both ends of the court. When they're not playing well offensively, it creeps over. Granted, by season end, Southeastern will no doubt have improved - there are some really good players and a lot of moving pieces right now that will likely settle in time - but for now, if caught on the right night, Southeastern has shown an ability to self-destruct when things aren't going their way (remember that loss to Grambling I mentioned? They completely melted down and blew a 46-27 halftime lead and 59-47 with 6:30 to play).

Three Southeastern Louisiana Lions to know...

Without a go-to scorer (thus far), Southeastern gets it done as a team with contributions up and down the roster. The bad news for the Lions is, everyone on their roster seems to have occasional stinkers for games. The good news is, there are so many players who can score (even if unspectacularly), and it's usually somebody's night. Here are some to highlight:

Marlain Veal. The obvious one here, easily the best player on the roster, Veal stands at just 5-foot-9. Boy, can he play though. Sometimes even a little too fast, Veal averages 12.3 points and 5.2 assists - the latter of which is the best in the Southland Conference as league play begins. He's a solid outside shooter, making 40% of his three point attempts and his quickness might be unmatched in the league. Unfortunately, he can play a little bit out of control sometimes and his 45 turnovers this season have demonstrated that. When he's on, though, he's a human highlight reel.

Jordan Capps. The transfer forward from Samford suffered an injury after just two games in his junior year last season. This year, after an early ankle sprain, he has slowly been worked into a more prominent offensive role. He has just five starts, all recently, but he's the team's leading scorer with 13.1 on average. He's a little bit undersized at 6-foot-7, 220 pounds but he has a respectable jump shot and can be a really good scorer inside.

Moses Greenwood. SELA's other talented senior forward, Greenwood, has seven starts this year and was a really nice piece off the bench last season for the Lions. He's mostly an inside threat but has made half of his eight attempts from three-point range after just one attempt all of last year. During SFA's last game in Hammond in February, Greenwood was probably the Lions' best player. He's an excellent defender and rebounder and has managed to score a respectable 8.7 points per game as well this season.

The Lumberjacks win if...

They put up more shot attempts than Southeastern. Whether by turnover or offensive rebound, it has been a trademark of every SFA victory so far this season. The Lumberjacks are +7.38 in turnover margin and +5 on the glass, both tops in the Southland. The Lions turn the ball over more than 15 times per game and there may not be a guard combo more capable of frustrating Veal than SFA's defensive duo of Aaron Augustin and John Comeaux. The Lions are not a great rebounding team but they do average 12.8 on the offensive side, equaling that of SFA.

With the Lumberjacks' propensity to foul frequently, controlling the glass and creating extra possessions to counter free throws will be key to SFA putting away the Lions on the road.

The Lions win if...

They play defense like they did last year, get hot from three point range. No, the Lions haven't been themselves defensively this season, but that doesn't mean they aren't capable. In a close victory last year, SFA managed just 60 points and Southeastern turned them over 24 times. Sadly, for the Lions, that effort was wasted in a 54-point performance where they shot just 39% from the floor and missed half of their 28 free throw attempts. This is obviously not the same SFA team and duplicating that performance will be very difficult, but if they can lock in to the degree they did that day, even keeping SFA under 70 might be enough if they can get hot from outside.

For whatever reason, teams (minus Rice) seem to have their best three-point shooting day when they play the Lumberjacks. Southeastern has jacked up 285 attempts from outside the arc and they've converted on 34% of them. They'll need to do better than that to beat SFA.

Fast Break Points...

- Despite dropping their lone Division 1 contest of the week to Missouri, SFA received a vote in the AP Top 25 this week. If the Lumberjacks roll through the SLC like they believe they are capable, it isn't outside of realm of possibilities that they could crack the poll before the league tournament begins. SFA was just a couple spots out in 2014-15 before losing a conference game at Texas A&M-CC, but it demonstrated that voters respect a big winning streak even in a generally weak league.

- Since the spelling of Stephen F. Austin will forever be the number one way to trigger an SFA fan, I'll point this out from last season: 

- Remember when we couldn't stop talking about how bad SFA was from behind the arc? It was just a few weeks ago and they were terrible. With Kevon Harris and Ivan Canete both getting hot in recent games, SFA now ranks second in the entire conference with a nearly 37% conversion rate.

- Lions' head coach Jay Ladner was actually a high school coach until 2012. He spent just two years at Jones County Junior College, his first ever time coaching beyond 12th grade, before landing the Division 1 job at Southeastern. His Lions teams have improved every season since he arrived, going .500 at 16-16 last season (and 9-9 in league) after just a 9-23 (6-12) season his first time out. 

The Verdict...

There is a lot of unknowns entering conference season every year but this we can say for certain: Southeastern has a chance to be a good team but beating SFA would be a big upset. Right now there are just too many weaknesses and inconsistencies to think they could put together one of their most complete games of the season against one of the best defenses they've seen all year.

No disrespect to Veal but he can't go at it alone. I don't think the Lions are capable of putting up enough points at this stage of the season.

Stephen F. Austin: 81
Southeastern Louisiana: 67