WWL: SFA heads to Katy on a high note after beating Kats in Nac

The bowels of William R. Johnson Coliseum were not a pretty place on Thursday night after the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks choked on an open door to a conference championship. The typical chatter that follows every game was silenced. In the distant background, cheering from the visitor's locker room could be heard. Otherwise, just quiet.

Head coach Kyle Keller walked into the media room, held his head high, and answered questions as they came. He talked about resilience, how his team needed to be men of character and not let one loss become two. He was everything you want from your head coach after a loss as painful as the one suffered to the hands of Northwestern State. But he was clearly hurting, too.

Most people walked away without a single clue as to what should be expected a couple days later. Sam Houston State was desperate, so was SFA. What seemed like would probably be a sell out crowd (or at least close to it) before Thursday, could've been mostly empty between the inclement weather and basketball heartbreak, and few would've been surprised.

This wasn't the slumping Sam Houston State battling the absence of Aurimas Majauskas. This was the same team that beat SFA a month ago, back at full strength.

The Lumberjacks responded the only way they could. Leon Gilmore continued to play on fire, Ty Charles was back to doing Ty Charles things, Kevon Harris returned to form, and Dallas Cameron general-ed his crew to a wire-to-wire lead.

It got interesting at times, but it was at least as convincing as SFA's loss in Huntsville. Now, destiny, and the #3 seed, are in SFA's possession. They may have to play a game extra than they hoped, but three wins away from an NCAA Tournament berth isn't all that bad.

As the Jacks prepare for their Katy send-off, here are some things we learned on Saturday:

Think SFA got screwed by the tie breakers? Get a load of this -

Early in the week, I had a brief conversation with a Southland Conference team member while clarifying a rule for this piece. He told me that the scenarios were so endless that they wouldn't even begin to break them down until Friday, after the mid-week games were played.

Late Friday afternoon, the league released this 13-page document that explained every possible scenario. It included a mind-boggling reality that SFA could finish second, with a 3-0 record against two teams tied in the same place, and lose the tiebreaker. It's what happened.

And it wasn't the craziest tie breaking story of the day. Or anywhere close.

Nicholls blew an opportunity to guarantee a postseason berth (and give SFA a chance at winning the title) when they dropped a contest to New Orleans early in the day. The Colonels immediately began the score-watching process to see where their fate would lie.

According to the Southland Conference, they were still in a fairly decent position to get in. After Central Arkansas dropped their game at Northwestern State to create a five-way (yes, FIVE-way) tie for the 8th and final tournament spot, Nicholls was free to celebrate. From the official SLC release on Friday:

7‐11, NIC, ACU, UCA, UIW, NSU
Tournament Seeding Process Order:
a) If three (3) or more teams tie for a position, and the tied teams all played two games against one another, the combined record of each of the tied teams against the other teams involved in the tie shall be compared until a seeding advantage is gained.
Vs. other tied teams: NIC 4‐3, ACU 1‐5, UCA 4‐3, UIW 4‐2, NSU 3‐3. Tied teams did not play each other twice. Cannot break seeding tie.
b) If three (3) or more teams tie for a position, and if the teams combined to split their regular season games against one another, or if they played an uneven number of games against one another, then the tied teams’ won‐loss results against the next highest‐positioned team(s) they all played twice shall be compared. This shall be continued through the final standings until one (1) team gains the advantage, thus the higher seed.
NIC, ACU, UCA, UIW, NSU all played the following teams (in order of finish) twice:
None; Cannot break tie.
c) If three (3) or more teams remain tied for a position, regardless of the number of games played against the other tied teams, any won‐loss advantage in the combined pool of tied teams shall be used as a seeding tie‐breaker. This shall continue through the order of final standings if necessary.
Refer to a) above: NIC 4‐3, ACU 1‐5, UCA 4‐3, UIW 4‐2, NSU 3‐3; UIW gets seeding preference.
UIW holds place for No. 8 seed
NIC and UCA at 4‐3 revert to two‐way tie‐breaker:
NIC and UCA two‐way tiebreaker:
a) If two (2) teams tie for a position, and one (1) team holds a head‐to‐head win‐loss advantage after two games against one another, that team receives the higher seed.
NIC and UCA split games 1‐1; cannot break seeding tie.
b) If two (2) teams tie for a position, and if the teams split their regular season games, or if they only played one game against each other, then the tied teams’ won‐loss results against the highest positioned team(s) they both played twice shall be compared. This shall be continued through the final standings until one (1) team gains the advantage, thus the higher seed.
Vs. highest‐positioned teams both played twice:
Vs. UNO: NIC: 0‐2, UCA 0‐2; Cannot break seeding tie.
Vs. SLU: NIC: 1‐1, UCA 1‐1; Cannot break seeding tie.
c) In the event a tie cannot be broken in this manner, the tied team that holds a won‐loss advantage against the other tied team, regardless of the number of games played, shall receive the higher seed.
NIC and UCA split games 1‐1; cannot break seeding tie.
d) In the event a tie cannot be broken in this manner, the tied team that holds a won‐loss advantage against the highest‐positioned team(s), regardless of the number of times played, shall receive the higher seed. This shall be continued through the final standings until one (1) team gains the advantage, thus the higher seed.
Vs. highest‐positioned teams both played, regardless of times played:
Vs. SFA: NIC: 0‐1; UCA: 0‐2; NIC wins seeding tie‐breaker.
NIC is No. 8 seed
Tournament field is complete; no further steps taken.

UCA, now losers of five-straight, could do nothing but get on the bus, make the long drive to Conway, and think about next season.

Steve East, UCA's Sports Information Director, began looking through the various scenarios to pass the time. According to the Southland Conference, the two-way tie could not be broken between Nicholls and UCA on the highest seeded team they both played twice. As the release above states, Nicholls and UCA both went 0-2 against UNO and both split with Southeastern Louisiana. So in order to break the tie, the league release says Nicholls' single loss to SFA trumps UCA's 0-2.

Except, Nicholls and UCA played another team twice, and the league completely missed it. Northwestern State, who UCA lost to on Saturday, was played earlier in the season by the Bears and twice by Nicholls. The Colonels lost twice, the Bears lost only that final match.

Phone calls were made, freak outs and double-checking of every outcome ensued, and the Southland Conference didn't release the official Katy bracket until nearly 11PM.

Oh, and Central Arkansas was the 8th team on the bracket. Steve East is literally the team's MVP and he hasn't played a single second on the court.

And for a couple of hours, Nicholls thought they were in. All either team had to do was win a game on Saturday to guarantee it - but still - about the most cruel way conceivable to end a season. The Southland Conference released this statement, but that's hardly a consolation.

Can we all agree that it's time to fix this system?

Come back to us, Ivan Canete -

We talked a little bit about the struggles of Dallas Cameron, Ivan Canete, and Leon Gilmore a couple weeks ago. In Conway, all three played fairly well. Since that time, Canete has mostly come back down to earth once again.

He plays hard, too hard sometimes, but his shot just hasn't been falling for the better part of a month now. Flashes of his steal and game-winning breakaway in Corpus Christi awhile back still float to the surface from time to time, but if SFA could get that version of Canete back in time for Katy, it would be spectacular.

After the game, with stitches on his chin and a cotton ball stuffed up his bloody nose, I teased him about how basketball was disfiguring his face. He laughed in his typically good-natured, self-deprecating way. No doubt, the way he's thrown his body around for the betterment of the team has shown his heart and effort never left. The scoring, unfortunately, has.

If his shot starts falling, and it eventually will, the defensive confidence he built up back in January will return too. The lack of reliable scoring on this team requires that he find it before one more loss ends the season.

Root for Ivan Canete to get going early. He may be the ticket to the NCAA Tournament, or the ticket back home from Katy.

On the other side of things, Leon Gilmore is suddenly the best player on the court -

The tall, slender forward from Houston has always been an athletic freak of nature. He's been arguably the best defender for the most extended time all season. What has been often confounding has been the no-look passes that result in turnovers, the three point shots that don't go in, and other questionable offensive decision-making. Over a stretch of the last week or so, something has suddenly clicked for Gilmore on the offensive end too.

Keller admitted post-game that the Lumberjacks don't run plays specifically for Leon to score. Some of his points are deliberate inside feeds, but a lot of it is just hustle and out-working of the opposition.

On Thursday in the loss to Northwestern State, Gilmore cracked 20 points for the first time in his DI career. On Saturday, he was just a human highlight reel (and even cracked ESPN's #SCTop10 for one of these):

Percentages may not feel favorable in Katy, but SFA has as good a chance as anyone to Dance -

An underrated stat when looking at the Southland Conference field: the Lumberjacks have beaten every tournament team at least once this season. Only Sam Houston State and New Orleans, who the Jacks split the season series with, have beaten Stephen F. Austin in the 2016-17 season.

Now, on one side, that's an indictment on the really terrible losses to some bottom-feeding teams this season that prevented SFA from claiming a conference title. But it does mean, from a mental standpoint, SFA has an advantage.

The fast-paced tournament environment makes it hard to thoroughly scout and prepare for anyone. No worries. SFA has played them already. SFA has beaten them already.

You never want to play three games when you could have only had to play two. But I wouldn't bet against the Lumberjacks getting through that first round and beating Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for a third time.

If you haven't yet, listen to Kyle Keller discuss CJ Williams -

Listen right here, conversation about CJ Williams starts at 6:45. Warning: Feels.