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All season, Stephen F. Austin head coach Kyle Keller, like a broken record, has talked about getting his team ready to peak at the right time.
Through the "dog days" of the league slate, it was easy for some to question that vision. An absolutely dumbfounding loss a couple weekends ago in Beaumont left some fans unreasonably upset. So what is different now in this three game winning streak, each in relatively easy fashion, while averaging better than 94 points per outing?
Keller thinks it's pretty simple. "Lamar pissed us off," he told The Sawmill after trouncing Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Wednesday night.
After an upcoming weekend opponent who isn't exactly lighting the world on fire — that would be the now 0-13 Cardinals of Incarnate Word — SFA actually ends with a pretty challenging stretch of four games against teams with a winning record.
But if the version of the Lumberjacks who has dominated McNeese, Northwestern State and the Islanders over the last two weeks can continue to make appearances, there's plenty of reason to think every goal can be achieved.
Here's what else we learned on Wednesday:
SFA's offensive surge has been more than just the Shannon Bogues show -
The junior guard has been rightfully heaped with praise in the last weeks as he's come on fire to take over the leading scorer position for the season with brilliant displays of shooting and athleticism.
SFA's new fast-paced offense, the one Keller and his staff envisioned from the beginning but took time to round into form, is a lot more than the individual excellence of one player, though.
On Wednesday, I thought the biggest stretch of the entire game was the first four minutes of the second half. That was the period where an 11 point deficit for an Islanders team at home, and still thinking they had a chance, was turned into a 20 point Lumberjacks advantage and what felt like the fatal gut punch to the home team.
That run happened with Bogues on the bench.
That's not taking anything away from Shannon, who sparked the original offensive explosion in the game when a slow beginning from Keller's starting five forced a timeout. But let's make sure we appreciate the growth elsewhere, too — Shannon's NBA-caliber isolation game is only a part in the deep weaponry this team has shown over the last week-and-a-half.
That second half stretch was defined by plays like this, where five of the six field goals made were assisted:
Leon Gilmore III got some heavy praise from Jeremy Cox after Wednesday -
SFA assistant head coach Jeremy Cox is a very low key, very serious, very experienced coach. His work at virtually every level of college basketball is well documented. Billy Gillispie, who hired Cox when he was the head coach at Texas A&M, Kentucky and (briefly) Texas Tech, called the veteran of 20 years in the business "one of the best interior coaches in the game of basketball in the world."
It's almost mind-blowing that SFA was able to hire someone like Cox, who has also spent time coaching and developing players at Nebraska, Southern Miss, UTSA, various elite JUCO programs, and even Team USA's national team development program. With that in mind, and the many NBA talents he's worked with, what might be even more mind-blowing was what Cox told Lumberjacks' broadcaster Rob Meyers in his postgame show after beating the Islanders. "[Gilmore] might be the best post defender I've ever coached," he said.
Those who know Cox are well aware that he's not one for hyperbole. When he makes a statement like that, it's meant to be taken seriously.
Gilmore has been known to shut down stars for his entire career and the job he did on a smaller, nimbler player like Joe Kilgore on Wednesday was as impressive as any of those great performances that come to mind. I thought SFA's gameplan of using small guards like Aaron Augustin and John Comeaux to matchup with Kilgore in the backcourt, while switching to Gilmore in the post was brilliant.
When you have one of the best post defenders in the country, it's usually a pretty good idea to take advantage of it.
Out-working the other team was the trademark of this team during the successful non-conference run. We're seeing it again -
Of all the great lines I've heard from Keller over the last two years, here's the one that stands out the most to me: "Everyone wants to talk about our talent," he said back in early January. "You want to know who our best talent is? Our effort."
In many ways, Keller suggested he got more out of his team when they weren't the most talented on the floor. When teams like Missouri and LSU bring their heaps of four-star recruits in to battle, you cannot rely on physical ability to win a game.
That's not to say SFA hasn't played hard, even during some of the low points in their three conference losses. Consistent effort hasn't been a problem.
But sometimes, you just see a new dimension of it: guys diving for loose balls, battling with a chip on their shoulder for every rebound, and laying their entire heart out on the court for their team.
I saw that against Nicholls — the one team in the league with arguably superior "talent" from an athletic standpoint — but with that as perhaps the lone exception, it really took until McNeese last week before we started really seeing it at the level they showed back in December.
And then Northwestern State. And then the Islanders. All three teams with an athletic disadvantage, and an advantage for SFA that didn't stop them from playing like absolute dogs.
Keller has said a few times in the past days that the team changed their mindset from being the "hunted"—the preseason favorite—to being the "hunter." Maybe that's what it takes to seemingly come up on the right end of every loose ball bounce like this:
SFA didn't need Ivan Canete on Wednesday, but they will -
Canete is a 41% three-point shooter, SFA's most experienced point guard (when he's tasked with running the offense), and a senior leader of the team. The traits you don't see, though, might be his best.
When things aren't going well and adversity strikes, Canete is the player his teammates lean on to right the ship emotionally. Along with fellow seniors Ty Charles and Gilmore, Canete represents the spirit of the team. When things are going well and players like Bogues and Kevon Harris are taking over, those seniors may or may not be vital to the wins and losses.
When adversity strikes, they might be the most important people on the entire team.
Canete turned his ankle in practice the night before SFA made the bus trip to Corpus Christi. Keller made the decision to hold him out of the game and offered a coy non-answer when asked about his status on Saturday against Incarnate Word.
He's expected to be okay but risking his health against an 0-13 team is probably not prudent. When Canete is going to be the biggest asset is during that stretch of games with ACU, Lamar, Central Arkansas and Sam Houston State.
And, without question, if things take a southern turn in any of them, he'll be needed.
