What We Learned: SFA completes 1-1 road trip with cruel defeat

Sometimes being a fan is fun. Sometimes nights like Saturday night happen.

The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks have been on the other side of things a few times - winners of the close, gut-wrenching battles, the last second shots. Sometimes you're just owed a gut punch like this group suffered in San Antonio.

Drama giveth and drama taketh away and just a couple days after winning one in similarly tight fashion, SFA was dealt a 3-point dagger with under five seconds to play. It was enough for Incarnate Word to emerge victorious.

As SFA (4-3) looks to rebound for the week's homestand, here are some things we learned in San Antonio:

If you play a dangerous game, you're gonna get burned -

Truth be told, this probably shouldn't have been an overly close affair. SFA entered relatively hot having won 3-straight and Incarnate Word certainly hadn't been lighting things up in league play. While SFA seems to have moved beyond losing convincingly to bad teams on the road (See: Charles, Lake), they're still clearly a different group away from William R. Johnson Coliseum.

On Thursday evening, SFA had a similarly close affair with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. While different in its makeup, like Saturday, it was the kind of game that could easily have gone either way.

This road trip, the first in non-neutral territory that has seen a win at all for SFA, could easily have been either 0-2 or 2-0. What if the final three-pointer in San Antonio had rimmed out? What if Ehab Amin sank his desperation heave in Corpus Christi? Either could have happened, and either would have dramatically changed the way we see this team right now.

Case in point: remember that one upset in the 2013 NCAA Tournament when SFA-great Desmond Haymon tied the game on a 4-point play as time expired? Of course you do. SFA knocked off Virginia Commonwealth for the first Lumberjacks victory ever in an NCAA Tournament game.

How quickly we forget about the defensive breakdown in the final seconds of overtime. What if this shot goes in? Would anyone even remember Haymon's heroics?

But it didn't go in. And here's the point: playing these close, cardiac-straining games are fun in a way. They also leave an awful lot up to chance.

This team is no better or worse than they would have been if either of those small details in the last 10 seconds of either game this week had changed. They could be 2-0 and have the same deficiencies they do now. Or they could have gone 0-2 and the improvement over the last month wouldn't be any less authentic.

The Lumberjacks are almost good enough to get it done, but not yet. Until they take the next step, putting teams away when they have a chance before the final minute, a 50% winning percentage on a trip like this sounds about right.

Don't knock TJ Holyfield. He did what he needed to do -

People were rightfully hard on TJ Holyfield after his no-show in Corpus Christi. He may not have had a productive game by his standards on Saturday but he took the shots he needed to take.

I know, they didn't go in. Holyfield shot 3-10 from the field and only put up 6-points. Hardly a notable performance at face value. This is what we know about TJ, though: he's a much, much better shooter than that.

You can't make the shots you don't take. That's probably been the number one issue in TJ's offensive production - just not taking shots. No, the selection wasn't always perfect, but Holyfield won't have 3-10 nights often.

Keep shooting, TJ. I'd much rather have the 3-10 version, where Holyfield has a chance to carry the team, than the Thursday in Corpus Christi TJ.

As has been an issue at times this season, collectively the team didn't shoot well in San Antonio. The long scoring droughts made another return, players looked gun-shy, you know, that stuff again.

I will give credit to TJ for continuing to take shots even when things weren't falling, though.  Those shots wont bounce out forever.

Deep shooting teams could be an Achilles' heel for this defense -

The biggest asset that SFA has shown defensively all season has been an impressive ability to shut down opposing teams' go-to guys. Even early in the non-conference season, the pre-game scouting seminars that assistant coach Jeremy Cox has led in practice have shown up distinctly on gameday.

What made the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi matchup favorable in particular was the fact that, as good as Ehab Amin and Rashawn Thomas (when he shows up) are, when they're reigned in there just isn't a lot of scoring behind them.

In my pre-game writeup, I said that I expected a positive matchup against Incarnate Word due to size (or lack thereof in the case of UIW). In fairness, the defense didn't play particularly poorly. Still, it wasn't a great showing by SFA-standards.

What eventually sealed the Lumberjacks' fate was outside shooting - a hard feat to stop when a team has scoring depth like Incarnate Word. SFA wasn't able to hone in stopping a particular player, and what the Cardinals lacked in size, they more than made up for with a 56% clip from outside the arc.

UIW leads the league in 3-point percentage so there wont be a true equivalent, but it will be interesting to follow SFA's defensive prowess against other jump shooting teams with the Cardinals' blueprint now on film. We won't have to wait long to find out with Central Arkansas coming to town this week.

To February and beyond -

The surprising Privateers are 6-1. The Bearkats are 6-2 and have won those all in a row. But there's good news too: SFA has two games to be played against each opponent.

I get it, unless the road play improves even a sweep of both series will mean essentially nothing. Trust the improvement will continue. "Don't judge us until February 1st," has been the motto from head coach Kyle Keller all season. The best news of all? All but one of those four games happens after February 1st - and the one in January, a date with New Orleans this weekend, is played at home.

The Drive for Five is firmly attainable. And if ultimately it doesn't happen? Gear up for Katy.

Despite the setback, there's a lot of life in this season. To be continued on Wednesday...