When previous head coach Brad Underwood left the program, Stephen F. Austin Basketball was expected to take a dip. But the Lumberjacks are as strong as ever.
When it comes to the 30+ year history of Stephen F. Austin Basketball in the Southland Conference, it’s been a tale of two halves. The first 15 years the Lumberjacks were a middle of the road team in the league who struggled to gain footing. But under former head coach Danny Kaspar, they took another step as a program, winning regular season titles and went to their first-ever NCAA Tournament in 2009.
When Brad Underwood took over from 2013-2016, Stephen F. Austin dominated the Southland Conference. The program went 53-1 in league play and went to the Big Dance all three seasons, including a pair of wins to gain national notoriety. It was all going well for the program – until Underwood elected to go to Oklahoma State.
The first thought that many had at the time was that the Lumberjacks would take a step back as a program, especially since all-time player Thomas Walkup had graduated himself. Many other mid-majors have failed to sustain a short period of elite success after losing either their head coach and star players.
That looked to be the case with Stephen F. Austin, who missed the Big Dance in 2017 after going 18-15 (12-6). They still performed well in the Southland but that previous level of dominance appeared to be gone.
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Last season, however, proved that the Lumberjacks were ready to reclaim their throne. With Kyle Keller getting his footing as a head coach, the team went 28-7 (14-4) and were competitive against the power conference teams in the non-conference. Stephen F. Austin also survived what proved to be arguably the best collection of talent that the Southland Conference even assembled. As they have in the past, the team went on to win the Conference Tournament and scare eventual Elite Eight participant Texas Tech in a near 14-3 first-round upset.
Stephen F. Austin looks to be near back on the level that they were a few years ago. The recruiting classes have gotten better and better thanks to the previous golden era, with those players now becoming experienced veterans for the team. JUCO transfer Shannon Bouges proved to be a goldmine fine for the Lumberjacks and should be the preseason favorite to win Southland Player of the Year.
The team favored to win the conference in 2019 will be Stephen F. Austin, a phrase that might be becoming normal for the program. With a rich recruiting base in the state of Texas with players now knowing who the Lumberjacks are, combined with a head coach in Kyle Keller that appears to be a great replacement for Underwood, look out for this program to be a quality mid-major going forward.
It’s way too early to put them in the same conversation as Gonzaga but Stephen F. Austin has planted the seeds for consistent success in the future. And for a program who hails from one of the smaller conferences in the country with small budgets and notoriety, what more can one ask for?