Hi, Mountaineers! We’re Stephen F. Austin

Wait, stop. Before this goes on any further, let's just take a moment to appreciate some mascot greatness.

In a world full of "Wildcats," "Bears," and other unoriginal, often demented, furry costumes, this is refreshing - a game featuring real human mascots who celebrate symbols of actual relevance to their region.

Well, this one is for you, fans of the West Virginia Mountaineers. We're the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks of Nacogdoches, Texas, your opponents in the 2016 NCAA Tournament Round of 64. Maybe you've heard of us, maybe not. That's alright - we hope after Friday, you'll never be able to forget us.

Stephen F. Austin, or SFA (please don't say SF Austin), is a public university in a pure college town of roughly 33 thousand residents. Like a lot of state universities in Texas, SFA was originally founded as a teachers college in the 1920s and has since grown to now cover 120 different fields of study. Unlike most Texas schools though, SFA operates independently and is not a member of any of the six state university "systems."

To understand what makes SFA unique, you have to know where it's located: Nacogdoches is basically the middle of nowhere. A solid 140 miles from Houston, 160 from Dallas, 230 from Austin, and 300 from San Antonio, this is no commuter school.

Deep in the piney woods of East Texas (thus the Lumberjacks), SFA students are generally close enough to their parents to drive home for the occasional long weekend, but far enough away to avoid a surprise visit (just 33% grew up within 100 miles). It's a lot of city kids with a few rural Texans mixed in, on a sprawling and spectacularly beautiful 400+ acre campus, in the center of a small historic town.

The result is a lively residential college, a melting pot of Dallas and Houston loyalists, consistently battling its reputation as a party school. And yes, it's a lot of fun.

If you're really motivated (Sun Tzu did say you should know your enemy), here's a virtual tour of the Stephen F. Austin campus. I would highly suggest you mute your speakers unless you like 6-second music loops.

The Southland Conference is an unfortunate pool of competition right now and, together with our bitter rival from Huntsville (Sam Houston State University), we probably wont be losing an all-sport title anytime soon. So while our football team has been mired in mediocrity over the past few years (we're working on it, I promise), our basketball program has given many a night terror to the likes of McNeese, Nicholls, Incarnate Word, and other schools you've possibly never heard of. The good news for us is they've been joined by Memphis, Oklahoma, Virginia Commonwealth, and a few other more notable institutions over the past five years.

We play in William R. Johnson Coliseum, a 7,200 seat on-campus building, where the graduating class of seniors has lost a total of once ever (to Northern Iowa, in overtime, last season).

As a brand new four-sided video board coming this summer, a new floor installed last year, and record season-ticket sales can attest, winning makes money. The Lumberjacks have represented the Southland Conference in the tournament each of the past two seasons as a 12 seed, and even though the non-conference schedule didn't go as planned this year, head coach Brad Underwood believes this is the best of those three teams:

It was a fun Selection Sunday in Nacogdoches! @CoachBradSFA shares his thoughts on the matchup. #AxeEm #LetsDance https://t.co/faiprNW88S

— SFA All Access (@SFA_AllAccess) March 14, 2016

Being an underdog has its benefits. Few will expect the Lumberjacks to defeat West Virginia - and that's okay. If we lose, we'll certainly be disappointed, but it was another great season. When you're a 14-seed, at least as a fan, it's hard to really truly lose by falling short in the NCAA Tournament.

But if we win - and listen, we might - I guess it will be Mr. Stephen F. Austin to you, Mountaineers.