Stephen F. Austin do not have an easy path to clear-cut the competition.  Blessed with some solid talent, Stphen F. Austin under Coach Brown are looking to put it together for one big run as these players won’t hang around Nacogdoches forever.  They had a good enough season last year to finish at a game over five hundred in the Southland conference but know they can be much better. They have the team to make a healthy run through this conference but there are three or four other teams who are just as talented and experienced in this league.  And we all know the Southland will get only one invite to the Big Dance so if Brown’s kids want a shot at glory, this is their year.  After all SFA was the favorite to win the league last year and fell flat and did not even qualify for the post season after an awful lot of attention both regionally and to some extent nationally. 

One player who lived up to the hype was junior guard James Silas.  Silas is and always will be the most beloved player the fans from Nacogdoches have ever had to cheer for.  He is a great player with the kind of self motivation it takes to dominate a sport built for big men even if you are undersized.  Silas is also charismatic and a great showman.  He can flat out play and loves being the main man for Stephen F.  He averaged over seventeen points a game and picked it up down the stretch when he put the team on his shoulders.  He won a big game agasint North Texas State with an unbelievable thirty-footer and hit clutch shot after clutch shot.  ‘Snake’ was also the point guard for Stphen F. Austin and handed out many assists and was the unquestioned leader of the team.  Silas’s MO was to share the ball and get his teammates involved for the first three quarters of every game.  If Stphen F. Austin were doing well he would be just fine with taking 8 or nine shots a game but most of the time the games were close and that is when he became the ‘man.’  Countless times Silas would flat take his ball and do whatever was needed to score down the stretch thus the acquire nickname the ‘late Mr. Si.’   Of Stephen F. Austin’s 15 wins Silas scored 8 or more points in the final five minutes ten times.  Seriously he is a special player.  His best game might have been in San Antonio when he scored 28 points, grabbed 10 boards and handed out 12 assists in a game marked by Stephen F. Austin coming back from a 17 point deficit in the second half and the Snake scoring the last 18 Lumberjack points including an 8 foot leaner at the buzzer for the win.  Silas comes from Tallulah Louisiana which is a hotbed for basketball talent in a small area that has produced some superb players foremost of which is the great Jimmy Jones that went to Grambling.  Following ‘Cooch Eye’ at Tallulah (and playing with him for a year, imagine that back court) was a huge plus for Silas as he learned the all-around skills that have made him the great player he is now.  He does not have the size of Jones as Silas is only six one but he has the same skill set of being able to handle the ball and hit mid-range jumpers all day and especially get to the hole.  There matchup in late January close to their home town was a classic and showed that the student had ‘almost’ caught up to his mentor.  Silas is tough as they come and loves going inside and drawing contact and when he gets to the line he hardly ever misses making 85 percent of his free shots.  These skills alone make ‘Captain Late’ almost unstoppable down the stretch because if you guard him too close he will get to the line and if you don’t he will hit one of his variety of shots.  There is nobody that Stephen F. Austin or any other Southland conference team would want with the ball down the stretch in a close game than Silas.  He may be the most unknown great player in the state of Texas.  

The biggest tree in the forest in Nacogdoches was Big George Johnson.  A behemoth that loves to eat up space in the paint and make other teams uncomfortable to wander into his neck of the woods.  Johnson is an enigma.  He lacks the offensive skills to be dominant but can change a game with his great defense and rebounding.  When he comes to play he is as good as anybody on the defensive side in the Southwest outside of Houston.  However, he disappears at times (hard to do at his height) and is relatively unskilled offensively.  Still, when he played well Stephen F. Austin usually won.  George E hails from tiny Harleton (pop. Less than 1000) and as much as he is a project his presence has made this program legitimate.  As a true seven footer and almost 250 pounds, Johnson has the size that pro scouts love and he can match up with the other big boys from this area.  His matchup with Robert Parish was a classic as well as showdowns with Zelmo Beaty and Willis Reed have made him pro ready.  Or at least some believe.  Johnson has a way to go if he is going to make it at the next level but George E has the size and he will work and will be drafted.  His ongoing battles with smaller big men CA Core and especially James Lister show he loves to compete but it also showed that size is not everything.  Still, Stephen F. Austin would not be the tree cutters they have been for the last three years with big George. 

Junior Pete Harris’s ongoing presence in the starting lineup has supplied ample support under the hoop for Johnson. Harris, who has nowhere near the size of his sidekick down low, is a terrific rebounder who loves to bang with the big boys.  Pete is also a solid scorer who combined with Johnson to give Stephen F. Austin 25 points a game in the key.  This combo was dominant in the paint and they were confident they could pound down low with anybody.  And for the most part they were right.  This team was a perimeter oriented team offensively and never got away from that with Silas running the show but with these two physical big men Stphen F. Austin still were effective down low.  Of course, neither one is Elvin Hayes or Parish on the blocks and they did have some games where they missed way too many shots or worse, their presence was lacking.  This may have been why they were so inconsistent.  Still, Harris is a solid all-around player who at six seven and 225 pounds is terrific on the boards and does have a diverse game. He is not seen as a great pro prospect unless he can develop a bit more of an outside game.  The good thing is he has two years to show he can do that but the bad thing is that most of his game is secondary rather than primary. He will continue to excel and put up big numbers for Stphen F. Austin but can he take his game to the next level and be the first option down low?  That we shall see! 

Seniors C.L. Nix and Surry Oliver had a nice competition for the third front court position next to Harris and Johnson.  Harris had come on so strong that Coach Brown had to play him.  It wasn’t much of a competition as Nix actually started a few games early but was better suited backing up the big guys up front instead of playing a wing.  He actually faded to the end of the bench instead of the front by the end of the year as Brown wanted a little more athleticism on the floor.  Oliver was also more of a post but at least he could handle the three a little better than the senior.  Oliver is also from Tallulah and is part of the great recruiting that Brown’s partner in crime Al Barbre has done for Stephen F. Austin.  Tallulah is part of the great rural area in Louisiana that includes the likes of Willis Reed and Elvin Hayes and at one point was actually dominated by the Grambling Tigers (before of course Guy V. Lewis got his hooks in for Houston).  Oliver once outscored the Big E in a high school game and he was a huge get for this program three years ago.  Oliver was not exactly the perfect match as he is more of a combo forward and has some issues keeping up with the quick wings.  He was by far the best Stphen F. Austin had and he had earned his position and should have one more solid season in Nacogdoches. Nix is back and does bring some depth up front but there are others waiting in line that are bigger and might get more of a shot. 

Speaking of getting shots, Senior twins Erwin and Marvin Polnick are solid front court players who performed well in limited minutes.  Don’t tell Marvin but Erwin was better and was a huge plus for Brown as he understands what he is trying to accomplish.  Junior Andria Brown is similar to the Polnicks in that he can do a little bit of everything (he is a terrific passer for a forward) and played well when called upon.  

Coach Brown will have a revolving door of underclassmen and transfers competing for the guard spot next to Silas.  Brown wants to get him to the wing where he could open up his shooting but does not want to replace him just anybody.  Junior Harvey Huftstetler is the incumbent and can shoot but is overmatched defensively.  Sophomore Scott Dimak really seemed to work well with Silas and can score a little as well and is a bigger point guard at 6’3 so he is first up.  Junior Archie Meyers is the biggest recruit this program has ever had though he comes from a JC.  This kid is magic and can score and has great handles and could combine with Silas to be an all-time back court.  That is if he can beat out some of the kids Brown has brought to town.  Sophomore Eric Rhodes is one of these and this juco kid can flat shoot.  He hit over 45% of his shots and can also defend so watch out for him. This kind of depth and competition is what a good team needs.

Stephen F. Austin is not afraid to talk the talk but as they learned last season it all comes off pretty bloviated if you cannot walk the walk. This team has all the ingredients to being a really good team.  Too bad this did not happen at least the first half of the year.  The players had the talent but they did not get things going until it was too late. If it weren’t for the incredible play of junior guard James Silas this team may not have finished in the middle of the pack in the Southland conference.  They should have finished higher.  A nice run at the end prevented a catastrophe but 9 and 7 in league and 16 and 15 overall was not what Coach Marshall Brown had in mind when the season started.  After all not too long ago they once were a dominant NAIA program with some of the same players.  The air is much higher up at this level and even though this team had some gifted talent it was not quite enough to cut down the big trees of Division One.  Stephen F. Austin proved that it takes more than just tall trees to make a forest.  But this year not a player or coach is saying a word about how good they are going to be which of course leads to the question…if Stephen A said less would we even know how smart he really is?