The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks gave March back-to-back classics in the 2010s. In 2014, the 12th-seeded 'Jacks toppled fifth-seeded VCU in overtime — one of the great first-round thrillers of the modern tournament. In 2016, a 14 seed, they did it again: an overtime stunner over West Virginia's famed press. SFA became the program America rooted for in March — the little school from East Texas that played fearless, pressed relentlessly, and never knew it was supposed to lose.
And then, in 2019, the Lumberjacks authored the single most shocking result of the decade. On November 26, 2019, Kyle Keller's team walked into Cameron Indoor Stadium and beat No. 1 Duke 85-83 in overtime — the Blue Devils' first home loss to a non-conference opponent in nearly two decades, a game KenPom had given SFA a 0.02 percent chance to win. That team finished 28-3 and looked like a March lock. Then COVID canceled the tournament, and the dream evaporated overnight.
The years after were a wandering. The program left the Southland for the WAC, cycled through uneven seasons, and watched its March magic fade into memory. But the 2025-26 season was the revival — and it was emphatic. First-year head coach Matt Braeuer, with a roster featuring a dozen newcomers, led the Lumberjacks to a 28-6 record, a 20-2 Southland mark, and the program's first regular-season conference title since that cursed 2019-20 season. Twenty league wins set a program record. The 'Jacks spent three weeks at No. 10 in the national mid-major poll and even received votes in the AP Top 25 in late February.
Braeuer was named Southland Coach of the Year and became a finalist for both the Joe B. Hall Award, given to the nation's top first-year Division I head coach, and the Hugh Durham Award for the best mid-major coach in America. His best player, guard Lateef Patrick, started 31 games, averaged 15.5 points, and earned Southland Newcomer of the Year honors. The formula was pure Lumberjack basketball: turn teams over, crash the glass — forward Jerald Colonel was a double-double machine on the boards — and defend home court like it's sacred. Through mid-March, SFA had not lost at William R. Johnson Coliseum all season.
March, though, delivered the familiar heartbreak. As the top seed in the Southland tournament in Lake Charles, the 'Jacks fell short of the title and the automatic bid, settling for an NIT trip instead. For a program with this March pedigree, the NIT is never the goal — but for a first-year coach with twelve new faces, a 28-win season and a regular-season crown is a foundation most programs would kill for.
The context matters: SFA is home again. The Lumberjacks returned to the Southland Conference in July 2024 after three seasons in the WAC, rejoining the league where they built their empire — Southland regular-season titles in 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2020 and now 2026, plus tournament crowns and NCAA bids in 2009, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018. This is the league the 'Jacks own, and last season was a statement of repossession.
The 2026-27 season is about finishing the job. Braeuer's system is installed, the culture is restored, and the Southland runs through Nacogdoches again. The non-conference slate — the Battle of the Piney Woods rivalry with Sam Houston, road tests at places like Rice and UT Arlington — will tell us how far the ceiling goes. But the identity is already back: Axe 'Em, Jacks. Press, rebound, defend, and believe that in March, nobody in America wants to see Stephen F. Austin on the other sideline.
The March mythology didn't start with VCU. Brad Underwood's mid-2010s teams turned SFA into the mid-major everyone feared: three straight Southland titles, three straight NCAA trips, and a style — full-court pressure, waves of athletes, zero fear — that made the Lumberjacks appointment television. The 2016 win over West Virginia was poetic justice: SFA beating Bob Huggins's Press Virginia at its own game, in overtime, as a 14 seed. Two years later, the 'Jacks gave Texas Tech all it could handle in the first round. For the better part of a decade, the question every Selection Sunday wasn't whether SFA would make the tournament — it was who would draw them and regret it.
The rivalries run just as deep. The Battle of the Piney Woods against Sam Houston State is one of the great regional rivalries in college basketball — two East Texas schools, an hour apart, who genuinely dislike each other — and it remains the circled date on the calendar even now. The 2026-27 non-conference slate keeps the tradition alive with an October exhibition against the Bearkats in Houston, plus home dates and road tests against Texas programs that will measure exactly how far Braeuer's rebuild has come. Win those, handle business in a Southland that runs through Nacogdoches, and the 'Jacks won't need anyone's permission to get back to March. They'll take the automatic bid the way they always have: by being the last team standing in March, axes raised.