SFA's Kyle Keller: 'The purple monster will be back very soon'

Stephen F. Austin head coach Kyle Keller sat in front of the onlooking media, light pink shirt disheveled and purple tie loosened. It had been a long, laborious season, and now, moments after the Lumberjacks' semifinals loss in the Southland Conference tournament, it was coming to an end.

A reporter working for the league spoke up. "The fact of the matter is, a successful season. Perhaps a chance to play on beyond tonight?"

"Success at our place," Keller replied, "is playing next week on CBS or one of those deals. That's what we all have at our place. That's the expectations we have and our program has."

For the attending media, a press conference with Stephen F. Austin after a tournament loss in Katy was mostly unfamiliar territory. Darlings of March the past three years, the Lumberjacks were battling a transition season with an all-new staff and eight newcomers on the roster. Gone to Oklahoma State was Brad Underwood and in his place, Keller, who was tasked with creating a perennial mid-major power out of a roster almost completely zapped of returning talent.

Clearly, success for SFA (after tasting the cusp of the Sweet 16 a year ago), means something different than it does for most members of a league that finished 27th as a conference in national RPI. An 18-win season and a second place finish in league play is generally a solid effort. In fact, just one head coach has ever won more games in their first season at SFA. But for the Lumberjacks basketball program, it was still thoroughly unsatisfying.

And now, after an opening round blowout loss to Idaho in the CIT, the Lumberjacks enter a vital period of growth and development to ensure it is not a palate they taste twice.

Keller arrived in Nacogdoches in April and hired his first assistant, Wade Mason, in May. From there, it was a scramble of assembling talent, trying to field a competent team, and juggling the surmounting expectations of a fan base that demands excellence in both basketball programs.

CJ Williams, a key contributor off the bench during SFA's NCAA Tournament upset of West Virginia a few months prior, was diagnosed with a heart condition that ended his basketball career before the season began. Ty Charles, easily the team's best returning scorer, rebounder, and passer, nursed a shoulder injury all summer and then broke his hand in Keller's coaching debut at Kentucky. Nathan Bain, the hero of SFA's home opener, suffered a back injury days later and never returned. Samuli Nieminen, a talented freshman forward, would join him in the trainers' room a month later. Ivan Canete, the team's leading scorer for most of the season, battled an illness and subsequent weight loss. All year, the blows kept coming.

The team's only senior, Dallas Cameron, a defensive ace and backup shooting guard under Underwood, was forced to learn a new position, starting at point guard, after freshman Brandon Averette followed Underwood to OSU. Of the thirteen available players during SFA's semifinals loss to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, ten had never played meaningful DI basketball minutes prior to the season.

But in spite of the adversity, the staff remained eternally optimistic. Excuses rarely fall on the ears of those who cover the SFA team, and finishing the season with an opening-round loss in the CIT was unacceptable to Keller. "No one in our program wanted to take our last breath in some locker room in Idaho," he said. "It's been a very hard season for all involved."

For fans, too. A home winning streak that ranked among the tops in the nation, snapped. A conference winning streak, snapped. Conference home winning streak dating back to 2011, snapped. The streaks, the records, all of it, came back to earth in 2016-17.

But Keller, a man who spews confidence, "swagger," as he says, believes it could be awhile before a Southland Conference team not named Stephen F. Austin basks in championship light again. "The purple monster will be back very soon," he says.

And SFA's coach, entering his second season, has a pretty solid case for another run of unmatched success in Nacogdoches. Keller's staff will be adding freshman Cameron Mack, among the best passing high school point guards in the country. Shannon Bogues, a pure scorer from junior college, who averaged just shy of 19 points per contest, will join him in the backcourt. Stefon Fisher, a Rivals three-star, 6-foot-8, 230 pound power forward signed his LOI back in November.

Kevon Harris, a freshman of this past season and athletic freak, who averaged 8.5 points off the bench for SFA, will return with an expanded role. Ty Charles, too, as a senior and with a chance to play healthy for the first time since his freshman season. TJ Holyfield and Leon Gilmore, already a substantial frontcourt, should benefit heavily by the improved play behind them. Ivan Canete, now a senior with a year of DI experience, will have some time to re-calibrate the three-point shot that somewhat deserted him in the final weeks of this past season.

And the Lumberjacks may not be finished with their recruiting haul just yet. Zhaire Smith, the small forward coveted by more than 20 DI programs, including Oregon, Texas, Texas Tech, Kansas State, and Arkansas, appears to have retained SFA in his top eight, even as his stock has exploded over the past months. Along with growth from other contributors, like freshmen Aaron Augustin and Samuli Niemenen, the Lumberjacks' roster should put the them squarely atop preseason polls entering the 2017-18 season.

And for SFA, winning the league isn't enough. "We're busting our butts to get Sweet 16 players," says Mason, a New Orleans native and disciple of Oklahoma's Lon Kruger.

But right now, a couple days after a spirit-dashing defeat in the freezing tempest of Idaho, the bright future hardly stymies the transition year sting. "[Losing in the CIT was] not my goal and desire for ending our season," remarked Keller. "It's not why I am here or why I was hired."

For the loyal supporters, those most purple-blooded Lumberjacks who rode the highs and lows of the tumultuous past year, there might be, however, approaching relief.

Stephen F. Austin will watch the remaining festivities of March from home - but the nation's break from the Lumberjacks may be short lived. In the minds of Keller and those around the program, this is the calm before the storm.

"[Our opponents] better have enjoyed the licks this season," he says. "Because it's over for them."