Over the summer, the Oswego State men’s basketball team added transfer forward Joey Rowback from Fulton-Montgomery Community College to their arsenal.

    Rowback made the move after an incredibly impressive season as a Raider where he averaged just over 24 points per game on 57% shooting and 44% from three point range. The opportunity to become a Laker has been on the table for Rowback since high school, with head coach Jason Leone expressing his interest in the Gloversville native. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided it would be best to stay local for the time being.

    “Coach Leone actually recruited me when I was in high school and I was considering coming here already,” Rowback said. “But then COVID hit and [Fulton-Montgomery Community College] is only 10 minutes from my house so it seemed like a good option for me.”

   He then proceeded to rack up dazzling performances as he scored over 25 points in nine of his games last season including two games where he surpassed the 40 point mark. Then, in another attempt to recruit him, “Leone reached out again.” Rowback knew the program at Oswego State was good but it was the welcome arms of his new teammates that solidified his decision.

    “Obviously it’s a really good program … I’ve always been a winner and I want to win,” he said. “When I came up on my visit the guys really welcomed me with open arms and I kind of knew from there that I wanted to come here and compete for a national title.”

Rowback has been looking to his new teammate Luke Van Slyke, someone he has some history with as they played AAU together, as well as other veterans of the team as he gets acclimated.

    “Jeremiah [Sparks], Julien [Crittendon], Jamal [Achille] and all the upperclassmen, they really took me under their wing and have guided me along.”

   Rowback made it clear that his time at Fulton-Montgomery was not wasted and that it actually showed him what he needed to do if he wanted to play at the next level. Over this past summer, he started taking those steps.

   “The main thing for me was that I needed to get stronger,” Rowback said. “I weighed like 170 pounds coming out of high school and then playing at Fulton-Montgomery I played good but at the same time I was getting beat up [on the court] all the time so I put on about 20 pounds of muscle this past summer and really it just showed me what I needed to do.”

     With his winning mentality, this season Rowback is focused on finding his role on the team and doing whatever it takes to accomplish his goal of bringing home a national championship.

    “In terms of basketball I want to find a role where I can contribute, whether it’s coming off the bench, starting, whatever I have to do,” he said. “I just want to win, that’s the mentality.”

    Rowback joins the likes of Cartier Bowman and Josh Thigpen as the newest Lakers to join a squad that reached the Sweet 16 of the national championship tournament last season.

Photo via fmraidersathletics.com