With Geneseo and Brockport leaving the SUNYAC in the 2024-25 season for the Empire 8, with their hockey programs headed to the United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC), it has left some wondering if any other schools will be joining them in their departure.
Those two schools leaving completely changes the landscape of the SUNYAC for every sport. The first sport that comes to mind for me is men’s ice hockey with Geneseo being a powerhouse in the conference, winning five of the last eight conference titles and making the national championship in 2022. Some might think about men’s basketball when thinking about Brockport, finishing top three in the SUNYAC each of the last five seasons and winning the conference in the 2019-20 season. Baseball fans may think about Brockport as a school that has been emerging as a tough conference opponent the last few years. In many other sports you can find one of Geneseo, or Brockport or both among the teams at the top of the standings. The SUNYAC is losing two of the more competitive athletic schools in the conference and it will completely alter the layout of the SUNYAC.
Some speculate that this could be the start of the downfall of the SUNYAC after losing two of its teams. Others may say that it is just a bump in the road and the SUNYAC will live on without them, but you cannot argue with the fact that it will hurt the SUNYAC’s ranking among national conferences, especially in two sports the Lakers always seem to be fighting for high national rankings in: Men’s and Women’s Hockey and Men’s basketball.
So the question becomes, does Oswego decide they are next, and if so, where are they going? Some may think they will follow Geneseo and Brockport to the Empire 8, but I would like to pose a different conference: the Liberty League as a potential new home to Laker athletics.
The Liberty League currently hosts 11 schools, including many teams Laker fans will be familiar with because of their proximity to Oswego. It hosts 12 men’s sports and 13 women’s, including all of the sports the Oswego sponsors except men’s and women’s Ice Hockey and Wrestling. Do not fret when you see that it does not host Ice Hockey, neither does the Empire 8. Geneseo and Brockport found their solution, the UCHC, which I think could fit Oswego too.
Unlike in Div.I, there are more factors than just money when it comes to conference realignment in Div.III. First you have to think about location and travel. In Div.III, these athletes are student athletes; they do not get scholarships, so their academics are very much a big part of their college career, and not holding to academic standards can get them suspended from the team, so they cannot go on cross country trips in the middle of the week and miss class. The Liberty League has many teams that are all close, and teams the Lakers play already across their many sports. Clarkson, Hobart and William Smith, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), Skidmore, St. Lawrence and the University of Rochester (U of R) are all schools the Lakers play in their out-of-conference matchups every season. Add to that Bard College in Red Hook, New York, Union College in Schenectady and Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, so the Lakers wouldn’t be traveling any farther than they already do for most of their in conference matchups anyway.
The Oswego Athletics department would have to consider how this could affect their nationally-ranked teams. Leaving a conference that does boast some national powerhouses, especially in men’s hockey, could seem like a step down, but other conferences will have their own powerhouses as well.
In men’s basketball, none of the Liberty League members are currently in D3hoops.com’s top 25 or receiving votes to be so. Neither are any other SUNYAC team, but last year, the number two team in Region III, the one the Lakers are in and were first in last year, was the University of Rochester. Though this year’s first round of regional rankings will not come out for a few more weeks, projections from D3 Bubble Watch on X, formerly Twitter, has St. Lawrence, Hobart, RPI and Union were four of the seven top teams in the region. Playing those squads on a more regular basis could easily boost the Lakers already high rankings on the national scale. In baseball, Ithaca, U of R and RIT were all among teams ranked in the top seven of the region. Ithaca finished last year at no.17 in D3Baseball.com’s top 25.
The other sport to think about would be ice hockey. The UCHC could become the new home for Laker ice hockey, just as it is becoming the new home for Geneseo and Brockport. The Lakers men’s hockey joining would be another boost to the UCHC, a conference that already has a top three team, no.3 Utica, and is adding a top ten team, no.6 Geneseo. Add to that Stevenson, who are just outside the top 15, and the UCHC could easily become a national powerhouse conference with those four teams at the top. On the women’s side of the ice, the UCHC has Utica in the top 15 with Nazareth just outside.
If the Lakers did switch conferences, then the remaining SUNYAC teams become powerful, non-conference opponents. Teams like Plattsburgh, Cortland, Oneonta, Geneseo and Brockport (for every sport but hockey in this scenario) are all teams that can be added as early or mid-season non-conference, and for the national ranked teams, can be resume boosting games.
Though a jump from the SUNYAC may be jarring to some, it would certainly come with its benefits. As schools have already left the conference, this may be the beginning of the end of the SUNYAC. Oswego may have its options for a next conference, knowing that the next resting place before a potential collapse of the conference would be an idea.
