Last Year: 19-13; Fourth (11-7) in the Western Athletic Conference, No Postseason
Head Coach: Kyle Keller (Eighth Year; 145-69 at Stephen F. Austin, with one NCAA Tournament appearance)
Projected Starting Lineup
| G AJ Cajuste – 6’1″, 185 – Senior (5th) |
| G Latrell Jossell – 6’1″, 185 – Senior |
| W Frank Staine – 6’6″, 220 – Senior |
| F Sadaidriene ‘DayDay’ Hall – 6’5″, 210 – Senior |
| F/C Nana Antwi-Boasiako – 6’9″, 235 – Senior |
Projected Starters’ 2022-23 Stats
AJ Cajuste: 9.8 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 4.3 apg, 1.5 spg – 38.1% 3FG
Latrell Jossell: 11.8 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 2.5 apg, 1.3 spg – 42.2% 3FG
Frank Staine: 7.7 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 1.3 apg, 1.2 spg – 33.6% 3FG @ Utah Tech
DayDay Hall: 13.1 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 1.8 apg, 1.2 spg, 0.7 bpg
Nana Antwi-Boasiako: 7.5 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 1.2 apg, 1.0 bpg – 55.9% FG
Experienced Reserves
| W Kyle Hayman – 6’5″, 200 – Senior |
| G Myles Jenkins – 6’4″, 220 – Junior |
| F Juhlawnei Stone – 6’6″, 235 – Senior |
| F Clayton Southwick – 6’8″, 235 – Junior |
| W Chrishawn Christmas – 6’5″, 205 – Junior |
| G Kimahri Wilson – 6’1″, 170 – Junior |
| F/C Jalil Beaubrun – 6’9″, 240 – Senior |
Experienced Reserves’ 2022-23 Stats
Kyle Hayman: 4.9 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 0.8 apg, 0.9 spg – 39.2% 3FG
Myles Jenkins: 15.2 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 1.9 apg – 46.4% FG @ Anderson University
Juhlawnei Stone: 3.4 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 0.3 apg, 0.4 bpg – 59.6% FG @ Cal Baptist
Clayton Southwick: 11.1 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 2.1 apg – 50.3% FG @ Snow College
Chrishawn Christmas: 9.1 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 1.0 spg – 53.4% FG @ Panola College
Kimahri Wilson: 9.6 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 6.8 apg, 3.7 spg – 37.2% 3FG @ Triton College
Jalil Beaubrun: 2.5 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 0.5 bpg – 44.1% FG
Freshmen
| G DaeVeon Scott – 6’3″, 165 – Redshirt Freshman |
The folks in Nacogdoches, they like to Dance. Unfortunately, it’s been half a decade since they’ve gotten the chance to kick up their heels – and goodness knows they’ve been patient.
On the front end of this decade, Lumberjacks of Stephen F. Austin were a fixture atop the Southland Conference and, thus in the brackets. The ‘Jacks went to four NCAA Tournaments in a span of five years from 2013 until 2018, and moved on up to the Western Athletic Conference. Along the way, they memorably knocked off VCU in early 2014, then even more memorably showed up and beat down #3 seed West Virginia a couple of years later. There was also a game at Cameron Indoor Stadium that will be remembered for quite some time. Then, Brad Underwood left for Oklahoma State, the ‘Jacks tabbed a first-time bench boss in Kyle Keller to take over, and they kept on winning.
SFA’s new head coach had an extraordinary team of his own rolling into the postseason on a 15-game winning streak in early 2020, when the Covid-19 Pandemic shuttered the conference tournaments and then, March Madness. A 28-3 squad was robbed of its chance to advance and cut down nets and advance. It’s been a rocky few years since, featuring a postseason ban and Keller having to largely rebuild his program. He’s done it, though – and this season, the ‘Jacks are looking to prove that they are back in a big way.
SFA returns three of its top four scorers from last year’s 19-win campaign. Each of them is a potential all-conference player – and what’s more, there is proven, quality depth all around them. There may be another strong team in purple which will contend for the WAC crown, but SFA is ready to set some things right.
The team’s top scorer and one of the more underrated all-around players in the country, Sadaidriene ‘DayDay’ Hall is an all-WAC performer who helps to set the tone whenever the ‘Jacks take the floor. A former Eastern Tennessee State transfer, Hall has spent the past two seasons establishing himself as SFA’s best player. Whoever he was when he showed up on campus, Hall seems to have picked up a thing or two from SFA’s former star big man Gavin Kensmil, one of the craftier post scorers the ‘Jacks have had. Hall is shaped like a wing, but he plays a good portion of his minutes in the painted area. He’s highly effective around the basket, using tremendous quickness and decisiveness to get in close for quality looks. Hall has made more than 60% of his tries near the goal over the past two seasons, per Bart Torvik, but it’s his work from between five and fifteen feet which makes Hall so tough a cover. He’s dropped in 49.3% of all the other two-point shots which he’s attempted so far in a Lumberjacks uniform, and Hall led the WAC in both FG% (59.4%) and effective FG% (60.1%). So tidily has Hall gotten his buckets that he currently sits at fifth in the WAC in player efficiency rating – in conference history.
In keeping with his style of playing a big man’s game, Hall has finished fourth and seventh in the WAC in offensive rebounds the last two years, respectively, and he further ranked seventh in the league in total rebounds per game last season. All this, despite playing with a shoulder injury for a good chunk of last year. Hall is incredibly active and tenacious around the lane, and wins loose balls which other players might have had as a routine event. His energy level translates on defense, as Hall is both a rugged matchup and a playmaker on the other end. He’s piled up 76 thefts of the ball and 48 rejections of would-be shots over the 62 games he’s played in Nacogdoches. Hall is proving to be the sort of every-night star who has the versatility in his game and will to win which provides what his team needs even when the other guys are concentrating a considerable amount of effort on keeping him under wraps.
The starting backcourt of AJ Cajuste and Latrell Jossell are back also, and Keller’s experienced ballhandlers complement one another nicely. Together, they accounted for 21.6 points and 6.8 assists per game last year, and together, they drive the Lumberjacks’ attack – on both ends of the floor.
Cajuste made a smooth transition to the Piney Woods last year after three seasons working his way up to a starring role in the JuCo ranks, being named an All-American on the lower circuit two years ago. Last winter, all Cajuste did in his first season running the ‘Jacks was finish third in the WAC in assists and prove that every couple of weeks, he could just about win a game by himself. Cajuste scored in double figures 14 times across his 32 games last year, and he had a couple of fairly noteworthy performances mixed in. He went off for 27 points on 8/11 shooting from the floor against Northwestern State in December, posted two different games with 10 or more assists, and, when things were dicey on the road against Abilene Christian at the end of February, Cajuste exploded for 29 points – including a tally of seven in the game’s final minute-plus – to pull out a double-overtime win. Now that he’s back to use his extra season of eligibility, Cajuste is looking to become a more consistent scoring threat while running the same tidy point. His 30.5 assist rate was the WAC’s third-best last season, and Cajuste handed out 139 helpers against 72 turnovers in his first year of Division I ball. Though he’s not big, Cajuste plays just slightly larger than Josell, and takes on some interesting defensive matchups as a result. Since he’s a sticky-fingered sort keying SFA’s pressure, Cajuste will continue producing live-ball opportunities in order for the ‘Jacks to pick up easy buckets. Cajuste is comfortable using his dribble, and has some wiggle to get through the lane; and he earned more than 100 free throw opportunities last season, making a solid 78.1%. The indicators are there to suggest that Cajuste could emerge as a true star in his second run with the ‘Jacks.
He may be a little guy, but WAC defenders know that they’ve got to identify and account for Jossell any time he’s on the floor. Jossell led the conference with a 42.2% mark from the land of trey last year, and the one-time Kansas Jayhawk is now a 39.4% career deep marksman. He’s splashed 70 triples in each of the past two seasons, providing a consistent, defense-stretching presence on the perimeter for Keller. Because of his size, Jossell has long been asked to facilitate when he’s not dipping and ducking around screens in the hunt for a quality look. Last year, with Cajuste as his co-pilot, Jossell settled into his most comfortable rhythm yet, and nearly doubled his setup rate to 16.6%. With some big, athletic dudes having arrived from the Transfer Portal, the ‘Jacks will be better-equipped than ever to mitigate the matchup disadvantages which are presented by featuring two small guards. Additionally, the ‘Jacks can pick their spots to push tempo more confidently with two reliable distributors orchestrating things. While Cajuste led the ‘Jacks with 49 steals, Jossell pilfered the opposition 35 times himself. As a team, SFA had one of the nation’s most abrasive perimeter defenses, ranking 17th nationally with 8.9 steals per game. Now that Jossell has found his best role as a shot-making secondary playmaker, he can be a real irritant to the other team – and provide 30 minutes of worry-free productivity to Keller’s rotation.
“We got to take care of the ball better,” Keller told KTRE Radio late last season. “We got to defend the three point line in it. We’ll do those two things and then defensively if we’ll just guard the ball a little bit better out front, which kind of leads to three point shots.” Keller is still hoping to achieve a tighter defense and more three-point shooting – and he’s added some pieces to help with that, too. The ‘Jacks have turned some great former junior college players into Division I starters over the past few years, and Keller feels like he’s got another one coming in this fall. Though Cajuste is one of the WAC’s best point guards and Jossell is a great compliment at the position, SFA is adding one of the most wildly productive players in all of junior college basketball at the spot. “Kimahri is the truest sense of the word “Point Guard”. He is a very aggressive, long armed on ball defender 1st, which is what our staff sought out to build our defense around this spring,” Keller says of his newest playmaker: Kimahri Wilson.
Last year at Triton (IL) College, Wilson handed out 10 or more assists in four different games, ranked fifth in the nation among JuCo players in assists – and posted a 3.53:1 assist to turnover ratio. Even more exciting to an SFA side which loves to turn their opponents over and feast upon the resulting live-ball situations, Wilson pilfered the other guys 107 times in 29 games a year ago – the most steals of any junior college player. Wilson isn’t the biggest scoring threat among the nation’s point guards, but he will knock down an open triple, and ought to earn plenty of chances to shoot free throws with his aggressive and energetic style. “He surely isn’t limited though on the offensive end,” Keller has declared of Wilson. “He has grown as a consistent 3 point shooter and just makes the right winning plays. One guy I think his teammates will enjoy playing with.”
| Five Stats Which Tell The Tale (with national ranks) |
| 17.1 – Opponent Turnovers Per Game (5th) |
| 15.6 – Team Turnovers Per Game (346th) |
| 0.389 – Free Throw Attempts Per Field Goal Attempt (26th) |
| 71.8% – Free Throw Percentage (179th) |
| 45.2 – Opponent FG% (253rd) |
If he could iron a couple of things out, Nana Antwi-Boasiako could make an even bigger leap this winter than he did coming into last year. An 81-game contributor thus far for the Lumberjacks up front, Antwi-Boasiako stepped into the starting lineup last year and did some very enticing things. Antwi-Boasiako is likely the team’s longest and bounciest player; he threw down a team-leading 21 dunks, blocked a team-high 31 shots, and grabbed the second-most offensive boards of any ‘Jack. He also had the eighth-best free throw percentage (78.4%) in the WAC last year, but turned the ball over more than twice per game despite a 14.4% usage rate. The ‘Jacks sorely missed Antwi-Boasiako in their final few games of the season, as he suffered a scary back injury in the second half of SFA’s deflating March 1 loss to Sam Houston State. The next game underscored Antwi-Boasiako’s importance further as Utah Valley – a team which ranked fourth nationally in rebounding last year – beat the ‘Jacks up on the glass and the scoreboard in the team’s next game. If he’s healthy and ready to go, Antwi-Boasiako brings a great deal to the SFA equation. Though he’s not really a featured offensive option, Antwi-Boasiako visited the foul stripe 3.4 times each tilt last year, and even looked confident stepping into 15-foot jumpers by the new year. Should Antwi-Boasiako take the next step as an assertive, tidy offensive player, he could turn into a genuine weapon – but he is also going to face a fight to keep playing 27+ minutes per game.
After seeing what happened at the end of the year, and watching his ‘Jacks rank 265th in defensive rebounds per game and under 200th overall on the glass, Keller went out and found some new dudes to help get after it this winter. A couple of them are familiar, because the Lumberjacks had to go up against them last year. He may not have a classic pivot’s height, but Juhlawnei Stone is a wide-body who can occupy space and carve out rebounding opportunities inside. “Juhlawnei is someone who when we were preparing for Cal Baptist we knew he had a very unique skill set. His talents and physical presence fits in what has been so successful in the past in our system at SFA,” Keller told Colby Jackson for SFA Athletics this summer. Stone averaged 4.5 points and 2.4 boards over the past two seasons for the Lancers, and Keller is hoping that he can contribute 10+ impactful minutes as a different look up front this year.
The other former WAC opponent who joined the ‘Jacks is Frank Staine, formerly of Utah Tech. A big wing who’s started 65 games while averaging 25.8 minutes, 8.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.2 steals across the past three seasons. He has the size to even things out when Keller wants to use a perimeter lineup, and if Staine can get on the glass, he will be a big addition.
“Adding Frank Staine to our roster for the 2023-24 season was very important as we looked at our team’s needs. He is obviously a very successful experienced guard in the WAC but brings 6’6 size to that position we haven’t had since joining the league,” Keller said this summer. “He impressed not only the staff but our players as well when he scored 18 points against us in the Conference Tournament. Frank is a very well rounded player and has always been a consistent shooter from the 3 point line.” Staine’s role has been slightly diminished each of the past two seasons, and he’s hoping to prove that he deserves 25+ minutes in Nacogdoches with his winning defense.
Keller is adding another big wing in Myles Jenkins, who is making the jump from Division II Anderson (SC) University. He’s got the ability to knock down an outside shot, but Jenkins likes to get downhill best of all. “A powerful guard that scores at all 3 levels will contribute immediately to our success,” is how Keller described Jenkins to Anderson this summer. “His abilities to make plays off the dribble for himself and others is something our team was missing as we are moving forward.” If Jenkins can add scoring punch and some mismatch potential to SFA’s second unit, he could be a very important addition. Jalil Baebrun is back after playing through a foot injury last year. He has the size and hands to be an offensive threat, but Baebrun will also need to be physical on the other end. As much as he’s going to be expected to see a larger, healthier role, Baebrun will need to be better. Keller has also added former Snow (UT) College big man Clayton Southwick to the post competition. The Alaskan is solid and strong, and he’s got some shooting range. “His ability to stretch the floor, while still embodying the great toughness that our program is known for, will be a big weapon for us next season,” says Keller of Southwick.
Chrishawn Christmas is a rangy wing player who could become an offense-wrecker in Keller’s pressing defense. Christmas gets on the glass and can make plays in the open court, and should help defensively in a few different lineup looks. He doesn’t shoot it much from the outside, but Christmas can finish around the lane, and will surely be throwing down some lobs after SFA gets a chance to push the action in transition. “His toughness and versatility on the wing will be a welcomed addition to our program,” Keller says of Christmas.
Contrasting Christmas as more of a shooter, Kyle Hayman is back after flashing his scoring talent last year. Himself a former JuCo import, Hayman was one of a few Lumberjacks whot the ball very efficiently at low volume from downtown last year. This season, Keller would love to see a continuation of SFA’s 38.2% team rate – 14th-best nationally – on triples, along with greater volume. Hayman scored in double digits five times last year, and can provide that needed bit of outside threat. He has the length to get off good looks and fluidity to make jumpers in rhythm, and if Hayman can consistently prove that the defense must guard him far from the hoop, it will help everything on the ‘Jacks offense to flow more smoothly. DaeVeon Scott is back after getting hurt in his fourth career game and redshirting last season. He brings good size and scoring ability, but could be stuck behind a host of veterans at the guard spots to start out his first full year. He had been getting minutes as a freshman, and Keller clearly sees long-term potential in the youngster from Fort Worth.
| Five Out-of-Conference Games to Keep an Eye on |
| N – Drake / Oakland – November 20 |
| N – TBD – Cayman Islands Classic – November 21 |
| N – Loyola Marymaount – November 19 |
| @ Middle Tennessee State – November 9 |
| TBD – Florida Gulf Coast – TBD |
The Lumberjacks feel as though it’s been too long a wait to make their rambunctious return to the NCAA Tournament. This year’s team is deep and skilled. Enough so that Keller should get to release his guys and play the constant, frenetic full-court pressure defense he loves. This is a team which has ranked among the nation’s top 30 defenses at turning their opponents over in each one of Keller’s previous seasons, and the ‘Jacks have finished 34th in the country or better in team FG% each of the past four seasons. The formula works, and now, the roster has been well-constructed to plug the gaps in rebounding and perimeter shooting. Jossell, Cajuste and Wilson should form one of the most vicious trios of pressing guards around, and if Hall gets some help inside, the ‘Jacks won’t get worked on the boards like they did late last year.
“That’s not the fairytale ending anybody at SFA wanted, those kids deserve better and they have fought through so much adversity this year. They may not appreciate it today because but I think there’s a lot of life lessons that they’ve learned from this year. And that’s what we’ve talked about,” Keller told KTRE towards the end of last season, after Antwi-Boasiako had gone down and their rivals had doused the Lumberjacks’ hopes.
This year, SFA has been celebrating the school’s centennial. What better way to cap off the festivities than with a WAC title and NCAA Tournament run? It’s been awhile, but the Lumberjacks are built to contend once more. After having to wait it out since 2019, these ‘Jacks are ready to do some chopping.
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