What we learned from SFA's 90-59 victory over Centenary

A season that had already seen two non-DI teams at William R. Johnson Coliseum (including a preseason exhibition) had still not seen Stephen F. Austin truly run away with a game until today.

It may not have been a prestigious opponent but SFA finally handled a team comfortably, evened their record at 3-3, and tuned up for arguably the biggest game of the young season this coming week against UAB.

It wasn’t always pretty and some of the same issues that led to back-to-back road losses at ULM and Arkansas this past week are still clearly front-and-center.

But for once, it was nice to see the Jacks handle business against a lesser opponent. Here are a few things we learned:

1. The turnovers are almost purely self-inflicted

“If they could’ve cleaned up these turnovers, this was a game,” I remember telling someone after SFA dropped their opener at Kentucky. Boy, has that turned into a tall task. 

Entering Saturday’s game, SFA had more turnovers per game than any other of the 347 qualifying DI basketball programs in the country. After this win, comfortable as the scoring margin may have been, this is clear: it doesn’t matter who the opponent is. These turnovers continue to be self-inflicted.

You never want to totally take the other team out of the equation – yes, every turnover committed is a turnover forced. But as SFA gave away the ball another 19 times, one more than they did against ULM and two fewer than at Arkansas, it seems the level of competition really makes no difference for this group.

Head coach Kyle Keller promised after the game that the turnover issue would be addressed aggressively in the lead-up to UAB’s visit to William R. Johnson next week. While it made no difference against the level of competition on Saturday (SFA forced Centenary into 23 of their own), it will be hard to beat the Blazers if this trend continues.

2. Leon Gilmore doesn’t care about your T

In the midst of a frustrating second half against Arkansas, Leon Gilmore was handed a technical for hanging on the rim after a breakaway dunk. It was a questionable call but indicative of how the night was going for SFA overall.

Late in Saturday’s game, Leon Gilmore went on full replay mode. The referees didn’t see a technical this time, siding with the home team in both cases, but it’s clear the episode on Thursday didn’t make Leon timid about finishing on the break.

Have a look for yourself and appreciate the vast inconsistency of college basketball officiating:

Keller told reporters that he sees Southland Defensive Player of the Year potential in Gilmore and joked that he hopes to see him “in position to get a technical every game.”

3. By this time next week we'll know a lot more about this team

SFA has a pretty sweet home winning streak as has been well documented (31 games now, to be exact). What might be less common knowledge among those who don’t follow the Lumberjacks regularly is just how rarely they play a meaningful game outside of conference play on their home floor.

The winning streak isn’t worthless – SFA has definitely been better at home over the course of the past years but it's rare that they're really tested. It’s going to be put to the test in a big way this Wednesday evening.

There were some offensive strides made during Saturday’s win against Centenary. Coming off a couple ugly ones at ULM and Arkansas, the aesthetics of this third win were much needed. Now in just a few days, SFA will have a chance to see if there has been real improvement in their offensive ball movement or if Saturday was simply a byproduct of playing a DIII team.

UAB is no joke – and if you’re really motivated you can watch them play tonight versus Auburn (7:30PM CT, can stream the broadcast on this Facebook page).

We learned something about the Lumberjacks tonight though: they can actually blow out teams they’re supposed to handle at home. In a four days, we’ll know if they can handle worthy competition in the same place.