Keller will have SFA watch footage of teams celebrating beating them

A long non-conference season in the Southland will formally close on Saturday when Nicholls and Seattle wrap up their contest in the Connolly Center. And then? The 18-game per team league schedule begins.

Call it the Stephen F. Austin revenge tour.

Plagued by injury and struggling with a roster makeover in the aftermath of a coaching transition, the Lumberjacks did not have a Stephen F. Austin season in 2016-17. The six conference games they lost a year ago equaled twice the number of league defeats in every season since 2011-12 combined.

Head coach Kyle Keller is in no hurry to turn the page on those six games - seven, if you include a conference tournament semifinals defeat. His team will be reliving each of those moments as the Lumberjacks look to take back control of the league they dominated for the last half decade.

"I've got a lot of video in my office of teams celebrating after they beat us last year," Keller told the attending press after his team beat up on Arlington Baptist to conclude their non-conference schedule. "We're about to start showing it to our guys."

After going 11-2 in the current non-conference season with quality road wins over Louisiana Tech and LSU, SFA appears to have reclaimed their Lumberjack swagger. In March, after bowing out of the Southland Conference tournament with a loss to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Keller vowed the "purple monster" would be back.

Now, leading a squad with sky-high potential, he intends to make good on that promise; even while recognizing the target on their backs looms as large as ever before.

"Every coach right now, no matter where they're at, is saying we're 0-0 and they're getting all hyped up about playing us at home," he said. "It'll be a great challenge for us. I'm just glad that our game [with them] means something to people."

The Lumberjacks open their conference schedule with a road game at Southeastern Louisiana, a team they squeaked by in late February last season. They won't need to wait long before they get their first crack at a team who beat them - Northwestern State, who prevailed in the tilt effectively ending SFA's title hopes on March 2nd - as they'll travel to Natchitoches on January 6th.

SFA was picked as the favorite in the Southland Conference preseason poll this year and absolutely nothing has happened in the non-conference to change that status. It's one thing to win on paper, though, where any loss between now and a potential NCAA Tournament berth will be considered a notable upset, and another to actually put a winning product on the court 18 times in a row between now and postseason play.

For Keller, the personality of his team, one far more concerned with winning than individual achievement, is what tells him they have a chance to be special, even through that long grind over the next couple months.

"They don't care who scores, they don't care who plays," he said. "They just play for the front of their jersey."

The outcome, so far, has been a high-flying and athletic team, full of highlight reel dunks and uncommonly tenacious defense. The Lumberjacks rank second in the entire country in turnovers forced per game and they do it with superb conditioning and absurd effort. There isn't a game yet where they've been outworked by their opponent.

"It sounds like you guys are just having a blast this season," a local TV reporter commented during Keller's press conference on Thursday night. The Lumberjacks' head coach turned to one of his three seniors, Ivan Canete, who sat alongside him. "Ask Ivan," he replied. "He's the one in that locker room."

Canete sat back and smirked. "It's been a little bit of fun," he said.

Motivating the team to continue that enjoyment over the next 18 games will not be difficult with memories of last season still fresh in their minds.