Meet the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks, who haven’t lost since November

Over the next few days, you will fill out an NCAA Tournament bracket. Because NCAA Tournament brackets have to have upsets in them, you will pick somebody with a double-digit seed over somebody with a single-digit seed. Will you pick randomly? Will you pick based on mascot? Or will you pick smart? We’re going to profile five low-majors that deserve more credit than Random Directional State University, and although we won’t guarantee the upset — or even a close first round game — these are the no-names whose names you should know.

Up next: 12th-seeded Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks. The F. is for Phenomenal, as Lil Wayne might say.

I was really excited to write about a ton of small conference teams this year. Vermont, who went 15-1 in the America East. Green Bay, who went 14-2 in the Horizon League. Georgia State, who went 17-1 in the Sun Belt. Davidson, who went 15-1 in the SoCon. These are teams from little leagues that seemed head and shoulders above their brethren and capable of making noise if given a shot against the big boys.

They all lost in their conference tournaments. And although perhaps someday the NCAA Selection Committee will be kinder toward tiny teams that were great most of the year before slipping up late, they’re currently more likely to give bids to, say, N.C. State. So, I didn’t get to write about those teams.

I do get to write about Stephen F. Austin. They burned down the Southland Conference, then put the ashes in some cream cheese, put it on a bagel (everything, with lox) ate it, pooped it out, and flushed it down the toilet.

LET’S GET JACKED: Let’s talk about the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks.

Ugh did you not read that intro? Pretty good. They haven’t lost since Nov. 23! You can skip the rest if you’d like! That’s (does math in head) (carries 1) seven years without a loss! 29 straight games!

Ken Pomeroy’s rankings put them at No. 55, nestled between Xavier and N.C. State, the two teams who played in Tuesday night’s 12-12 play-in game. Pomeroy only gives them a 28 chance at the upset, but that’s because he’s very, very high on VCU.

No matter what conference you’re in, it’s damn impressive to win every game you play. Even more impressive is that the Lumberjacks won 13 of their 18 conference games by double digits. That’s domination.

Although they don’t have any “good” wins on the year — their only game against either a tournament team or Pomeroy’s top 100 was against Texas, a 72-62 loss — going 31-1 in your 32 other games is spectacular. Not a bad first-year coaching job by former Frank Martin assistant Brad Underwood, though it helped that he had a decent foundation when he arrived. Last year, the team went 16-2 in conference with their only non-con loss to Texas A&M, but couldn’t close in the conference tournament and ended up in the NIT.

The Jacks are successful in two of the four factors of victory that don’t necessarily pop out to casual fans: turnovers and offensive rebounding.

No team forces shorter possessions than the Jacks. The average opponent time-of-possession is 16 seconds flat, the shortest in the country. They’re not particularly effective at contesting shots, often allowing teams to shoot over 50 percent from the floor, but they force a ton of turnovers — the opposition loses the ball on 24.4 percent of their possessions, third in the country. They also make sure teams abandon the perimeter, with only 25.9 percent of opposing shots coming from beyond the arc, the 12th-lowest percentage in the country (This could be a side effect of porous interior defense).

On offense, the Jacks grab 38.5 percent of their misses, the 11th best mark in the country, and they assist on 62.6 percent of their makes, also the 11th best. It’s a strange combo — normally teams that offensive rebound well also have a high percentage of putbacks as opposed to assisted makes — but it works to make SFA efficient, or at least way more efficient than their turnover-prone opponents.

Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports

Southland Player of the Year Jacob Parker is the star. At 6’6, he’s normally the tallest player on the floor for the size-strapped Jacks. And he plays like it, too: the golden-locked junior led the team with 7.1 boards per game shot 54.3 percent from inside the arc. He’s got guard-like springs combined with the post game and boarding prowess of a bigger guy. One game-winner came when he stole a pass and flew down the court for a dunk against Northwestern State; another earlier in the year happened via a tip-in against Incarnate Word. And although he doesn’t use it much, he’s got touch. He shot 46.7 percent on his 45 three-point attempts.

Thomas Walkup joins him in the diminutive paint party. Despite just being 6’4, he took 238 of his 270 shots inside the arc and made a whopping 59.7 percent of them. They’re tiny, but in Southland play, they’re crafty and skilled enough to be effective.

And although Parker gets all the hype, he’s the No. 2 scorer on the team behind Desmond Haymon, the shooting guard who edges him out with 14.3 points per game.

Good? I’m not sure. Fascinating? Yeah.

I mentioned that the Jacks are the No. 3 team in the nation in forcing turnovers. Of course, VCU and their HAVOC defense is No. 1, as the Rams gun for the ball from the moment its inbounded.

Both teams are gonna be scrapping to get the other team to cough it up, so this is going to be a high energy, intense matchup. Neither squad is known for turning it over themselves, so it’ll be a struggle. I’m not fully sure what it’s going to look like, but there are going to be basketballs, hands and dudes in different color clothing haphazardly running after the basketball.

SFA won’t be guaranteed a win if they can out-turnover the Rams — 6’9 Juvonte Reddic will cause problems for SFA inside, and so might 6’6 forwards Treveon Graham and Mo Alie-Cox — but if they’re going to win, they’ll have to fight Havoc with havoc.

Rodger
AXE VS. HORNS.

Seth Rosenthal
The VCU ram appears to be a bighorn sheep.
Nice set of horns on that guy indeed.
But uhhhh yeah the lumberjack has a large axe.
Typically used to fell whole trees.
Oh my god, Stanford is in this bracket.

Rodger
And while rams are muscular and strong
and sturdy, so sturdy that it uses its head as a weapon
Lumberjacks, are, like, the burliest males we have.

Seth
Look how hunky the SFA lumberjack is, too.

(via the school website)

Or at least the former one.
Yes! That’d be so much better.
Anyway, the F stands for “Fuck up a ram with no remorse”. I think we can call that one pretty easily.

From: Nacogdoches, Texas. A town of about 30,000 northeast of Houston, near the Louisiana border. Clint Dempsey is from here, Willie Nelson recorded an album here called “Nacogdoches” and the Marx Brothers are purported to have first struck on the idea to do comedy (rather than singing) here.

Why are they named after that dude: Stephen F. Austin! The father of Texas! He brought 300 families to settle in the then-Spanish territory and was an important figure as Texas wrested sovereignty from Mexico. You would know this if you were from Texas and took Texas history in school. Yes, he’s the dude Austin is named after.

Mascot: It’s one of my favorite things in the world: an accurately regionally/school-centric themed mascot! Yes! They did it! East Texas is forest-y — its called The Piney Woods — and as such, SFA has one of the strongest schools of forestry in the nation. So yes, it makes sense that there is a lumberjack.

Note that there is not a guy in a lumberjack costume. There is just a burly-ass dude wearing plaid, bench-pressing cheerleaders and holding an axe:

I ... I think I’m pregnant?

They are the Jacks for short. It should be noted the women’s team is called the Ladyjacks rather than the Lumberjills, which I would’ve suggested.

It also should be noted that SFA fans have a two-finger axe gesture invented explicitly because sorority girls on spring break at South Padre saw the “Sic Em” and “Hook Em” hand signals from other schools and wanted something to go along with “Axe em.” We think more school traditions should be invented on spring break at South Padre, although it’ll be hard to create traditions if nobody remembers what happened.

Conference: The Southland! 13 schools, 11 in Texas and Louisiana. Northwestern State is the last Southland tourney team to get a W, topping Iowa on a buzzer-beating three in 2006. Meanwhile, NORTHWESTERN HAS STILL NEVER MADE THE TOURNAMENT WHY DO I HAVE TO BE REMINDED ABOUT THIS EVERY SINGLE DAY OF MY LIFE WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

Peeps who went there: What’s your stance on The Eagles? If like me and The Dude, you’re not so hot on them, you’ll be disappointed to find that Don Henley attended SFA.

Hate hate hate: SFA’s main rivals are Sam Houston State — because, yeah, WHICH GUY WHO HELPED FOUND TEXAS IS BETTER — and Northwestern State, against whom the Jacks play for Chief Caddo, a 7.5 foot, 330-pound wooden sculpture. Three hundred and thirty pounds!

Hoops history: This is only the second trip to the tourney for the Jacks; they previously went in 2009, when they lost as a 14-seed to Syracuse. SFA has produced two NBA players, but none since 1982. Unless you guys were big fans of late-70’s Spurs player James Silas (a forgotten great), you haven’t heard of them.