Stephen F. Austin
Lamar
#16 Jacks Welcome Lamar to Sawmill
2/6/2026 11:07:00 AM | Men's Basketball
SFA eyes win #21, ninth-straight victory and 13th win at home in Saturday tilt against Cardinals
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Stephen F. Austin enters the final month of the regular season atop the Southland Conference standings and winners of eight games in a row. The Jacks welcome in Lamar for the fourth installment of a five-game homestand. The two squads tangle for the second time in two weeks after SFA dispatched the Cardinals 88-81 in Beaumont on January 24. The Jacks hold a 23-11 record against the Cardinals in Nacogdoches and have won seven of the past ten meetings overall. Tip-off is set for 5 p.m. from inside the Sawmill with live coverage available at www.SFAjacks.com.
• LAST TIME OUT: Monday night's matchup featuring two of mid-major hoops' top teams lived up to its billing as #16 Stephen F. Austin bounced #15 McNeese 67-60 in front of 5,600+ of East Texas finest fans.
A raucous Sawmill rallied behind the Jacks late as the visitors from Lake Charles took a pair of second-half leads with the second standing as a 59-58 advantage with 3:47 to play. On the following SFA possession, Lateef Patrick saw a floater fall and connected on the and-1 stripe opportunity to put the Jacks up 61-59.
Keon Thompson, who finished with a game-high 21 points, connected twice from the line which preceded Patrick, who with 65 seconds remaining and with a defender draped on him, knocked down a step back jumper from near the right elbow to increase SFA's lead to six with 1:04 remaining. Moments later, the final nail was delivered by Chrishawn Christmas who emphatically blocked Larry Johnson's shot attempt on a drive to the basket in an effort to cut the contest to four.
The Jacks held McNeese to its lowest first-half point total (19) since December 21, 2022 when the Cowboys scored 19 first-half points at No. 3 Houston.
• AN SFA WIN WOULD:
*give the Jacks the regular season sweep of the Cardinals
*move the Jacks' winning streak to nine games; the longest by the program since 2021-22 and the longest league streak since the same season
*be the 14th in league play this season; the most since the 2021-22 campaign
*improve its home record to 13-0; the longest home winning streak since 2017-18
• MATCHING UP WITH LAMAR:
The Cardinals enter Saturday's matchup 7-7 in league play and alone in seventh place, but just a single-game back of a current three-way tie for fourth. Lamar has been powered offensively by Rob Lee Jr. who leads the team in scoring at 17.0 ppg. Braden East is the top glass cleaner for the squad holding SLC-best marks in rebounds (207), defensive rebound average (5.96) and rebound average (9.0). LU paces the league in offensive boards as a team grabbing 13.35 per night which rates 30th in DI, while the squad's rebound margin is the second-highest in the league behind SFA. Additionally, LU leads the SLC in blocks average at 4.8, 26th nationally, and is paced in the category by East and Andrew Holifield who both rank in the league's top ten in the category and have combined for 67 swats this season.
• REMEMBER ME?: First-year Jacks Jerald Colonel and Kam Burton were no stranger to the Southland upon arrival to Nacogdoches last summer. And for their former teams, Colonel's Demons and Burton's Lions, both were reminded of the current Jacks' impact for their specific squads a season ago. Colonel averaged 9.5 rebounds and 5.5 points against Northwestern State in two wins in addition to collecting three blocks. Burton averaged 9.5 points, while shooting 55.6% in nine attempts from range in two victories against the Lions.
• AND I'M THREE FALLIN': Against Southeastern, SFA hammered 16 three pointers in a game for the second time this season and for the first time against a Division I opponent. The effort matched its season-high output of 16 against Dallas which was the most by the Jacks since hitting 16 against Houston Baptist in 2015 (2/28). It is the first time in the new millennium that SFA has made 16+ threes twice in the same season. The Jacks shot a season-high 57.1% from beyond-the-arc against Southeastern Louisiana and has hit threes at a clip of 42% or better six times this season with three games north of 50%. SFA enters Saturday's matchup having bucketed a three-pointer in 45 straight games.
• NICE TO KNOW YA, JANUARY:
The first month of 2026 has come and gone and did so with the Jacks posting an 8-1 record in the month with the only loss coming in Lake Charles to February's first foe. In nine games in January, SFA averaged nearly 76 points per game with a +10.4 scoring margin. The Jacks shot 45.2% from the floor with a 36% success rate from three. Thompson led SFA in scoring at 17.7 ppg with Patrick following with 14.8 ppg. Christmas and Colonel combined to average14 rebounds per night as the Jacks posted a +4.2 board margin. Opponents averaged just six three-point makes per night against SFA during the first month of the year.
• TAKING THE FREEBIES: The Jacks shot a season-best 80% (min. 15 attempts) from the stripe against Nicholls. SFA shot better than 71% from the line in five of their nine games in the month of January, something the squad did just twice in November and December combined.
• UNCHARTED WATERS: SFA's efforts in taking UIW to the deep end beyond-the-arc resulted in just the third time this season that a team failed to make a three against a DI foe. Per CBB Reference and most notably spread by @trillydonovan on X, it's the 10th time SFA has held a team without a three-point make since the 2007 season - tied with Princeton for the most by any team in that span.
• THE FIRST TIME SINCE: SFA's seven-game win streak prior to the McNeese lost was the squad's longest since the 2022-23 season which came behind the Jacks' first five-game win streak to open SLC play since 2020-21. SFA enters Saturday's matchup having won eight-straight games; the longest active streak in the Southland.
• A HELPING HAND: The Jacks have recorded double-digit assists in 18 of 23 games and have committed 10 or fewer turnovers 15 times. SFA's assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.48 leads the SLC and the Jacks protect possessions as good as any team in the country with an SLC-leading effort of 9.6 turnovers per game: a top 25 mark in Division I basketball.
• 1KEON: On the road against Southeastern Louisiana (Jan. 3), senior guard Keon Thompson, a selection to the Lou Henson National Mid-Major Player of the Year Midseason Watch List, reached a career scoring milestone with 1,000 career points. The Indiana native scored 452 points over two seasons (60 games) at UMass and has delivered 720 points in 46 games dating back to the start of last season. Thompson leads the SLC in total points (410) and is second in scoring average (17.8).
• WINDEX WARRIORS: Matt Braeuer's year one squad has developed into the best glass-cleaning unit in the SLC. The Jacks lead the league in rebounds per game (38.78), defensive rebounds (25.74) and rebound margin (+5.3) and rank third in offensive rebounds (13.04). The Jacks have grabbed 40+ rebounds in a game a dozen times with 50+ against a pair of non-D1 foes. First-year Jack Jerald Colonel ranks third league-wide in rebounding at 7.3 and total rebounds with 167 behind an SLC-best 3.09 offensive boards per night.
• BLOCK PARTY: Colonel, the reigning SLC DPOTY, carried his shot-swatting abilities across state lines from Natchitoches as the Georgia native leads the SLC in total blocks (58) and blocks per game (2.52). Both marks rank inside the top ten nationally and his current total this season are the third-most in a single campaign in program history. Colonel is three blocks back from taking over second on the single-season list.
• THE NAR"IT" FACTOR: First-year Jack Narit Chotikavanic, the Lone Star Conference Freshman of the Year a season ago, has been lights out from range. The Plano, Texas native ranks second in the SLC in 3pt% at 40.9%; a mark that ranks inside the top 45 among DI trigger men. He rates inside the DI top 65 in 3pt makes per game (2.83) and total 3pt makes (65) both of which rank third in the SLC.
• PERIMETER ACTIVITY: While Lateef Patrick Jr. (50) and Kam Burton (51) both join Chotikavanic inside the league's top 7, the only SLC program with three among the league's 10 best, in total made three-pointers on one end of the floor, the Jacks are clamped on the defensive perimeter. SFA rates inside the top 12 nationally in 3pt% defense at 28.9%.
• LET IT FLY: The Jacks have surpassed their three-point output from a season ago. Chotikavanic is six made threes away from having the most makes from range by a Jack in the last ten seasons. Patrick (50 made 3s) and Burton (51 made threes) have hit three or more trifectas in a game a combined 16 times this season. This year's Jacks are the first SFA squad in program history with three players having bucketed 50+ three-point attempts.
• ALL ABOUT POINTS: The Jacks enter the weekend with the league's best scoring defense holding opponents to 65.0 ppg which rates inside the top 20 nationally. SFA's scoring margin sits at +13.0, the second-highest in the SLC, behind the league's second-best scoring offense at 77.9 ppg which currently stands as the highest scoring average for the program since 2020-21.
• KEN POM + NET RANK: Through games played through February 5, the Jacks rank 87th in the KenPom.com ratings and are inside the Division I Top 100 in NCAA NET rankings at No. 80. Both of those inclusions are currently the second-highest nods for a Southland program as the Jacks trail McNeese (No. 70 KP, No. 63 NET). Of the advanced metrics, the Jacks hold the No. 58 rating in adjusted defensive efficiency; higher than 11 other KP top 50 teams among which include No. 22 Alabama, No. 25 Arkansas and No. 27 Auburn.
• INSIDER TRENDING: After receiving votes for seven weeks to start the 2025-26 season, SFA broke into the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll debuting at No. 23 nationally on January 12. The Jacks climbed a single spot to No. 22 as of the January 19 ranking and enter the weekend ranked No. 16 nationally for the second-straight week. The Jacks' lone ranked opponent in the poll is fellow SLC foe McNeese at No. 15. The Cowboys rallied to beat the Lumberjacks 66-64 to hand SFA its first league loss, but the Jacks got their lick back at home with a 67-60 win on Monday.
• JOEY BRACKETS: The latest Bracketology release from March Madness guru Joe Lunardi projects the Lumberjacks, who have five NCAA Tournament appearances in program history, as the No. 12 seed in Houston's South Region with an opening round matchup against No. 5 BYU.
• SAWMILL SUCCESSES: You can't beat the comfort of your own home and for SFA they have yet to be beaten when in the comfort of theirs. The Jacks are 12-0 at home inside William R. Johnson Coliseum this season dispatching opponents by an average of 19 points. The streak is the longest in Nacogdoches since the 2017-18 season.
