Following Tuesday’s action, the Empire 8 basketball regular season has officially come to a close. 

The Pioneers finished with a 10-6 record which is enough to secure the six seed. Utica enters the postseason hoping to win their third conference title in a row after beating SUNY Poly in the finals last year and Nazareth College in 2024. Sitting in the sixth seed, this is the lowest the Pioneers have been seeded since the conference expanded the tournament in 2020. 

Leading the pack is Russell Sage College as they enter the tournament at their highest seeding ever since the team joined the conference for the 2017-18 season. They were sitting at the two seed prior to Tuesday before a hearty win over Hartwick College paired with Nazareth’s loss to St. John Fisher handed the Gators the top seed. This seeding was also helped by the Gators only suffering three conference losses, twice to Keuka College and once to SUNY Geneseo. This seeding leaves the Gators hopeful to make their first ever Empire 8 championship finals appearance.

In the two spot is the Nazareth Golden Flyers. Their two seed status marks nine years in a row being a top three seed in the tournament. The team’s leading scorer, Jaylen Savage, is sixth in the conference in scoring after being the conference leader last year.  

With the regular season wrapped up and summarized, let’s take a look at round one.

All tournament games will take place at the home of whoever is the higher seeded team. 

The one seed Russell Sage will play host to the eight seed St. John Fisher Cardinals. The Gators came away victorious in the meeting of the two teams back in January with a score of 85-70. The Gators have a deep roster to watch out for but Khalel Noteman is a name to not sleep on. Noteman is third in the conference in field goal percentage while also placing sixth in rebounds. This is especially impressive when you add into account that Noteman is the only center listed on the Gator’s roster despite being only six foot four. On the St. John Fisher side there isn’t too much to note besides the teams consistency. Just about every statistic shows the Cardinals right around the middle of the pack. While this is fine to carry the squad into the post season it will pose some questions for what coach Mike Grosodonia II will do to get his team over that hump.

With Nazareth’s two seed they will welcome Keuka who is making just their second postseason tournament appearance in the last five years. The Keuka Wolves are led by the conference’s leading scorer in Lamar Lovelace. Despite the much higher seeding, there is an argument to be made for this Keuka team. The Wolves did lose both regular season assignments against the Golden Flyers but it’s interesting to look at what the team is capable of pulling together agonist good teams. Lovelace found his groove against the one seed Russell Sage Gators in both of their matchups, helping his team win both games while scoring 41 in their first matchup and 32 in the second. There will be a lot to talk about for both teams pregame. With Lovelace’s scoring ability along with Nazareth defensive ability, the game could come down to who blinks first. Only SUNY Poly has allowed less points than the Golden Flyers defense.

Utica will take the 150 mile trip to Geneseo for their first round matchup. Despite dropping their final game to Brockport in a last second thriller, Geneseo secured the 3 seed. The Knights go into the game with the confidence provided by the fact that the Pioneers have not been able to beat the Knights in any of the team’s three meetings since Geneseo joined the conference last year. 

SUNY Poly star Anthony Rose will continue his senior campaign on his home court against SUNY Brockport. Rose had a standout performance against Utica to close out the regular season including 31 points and multiple clutch buckets. Rather than rely on one star player, SUNY Brockport’s gameplan has been relying on versatility. Pharrell Aybar and Jacob Oka however are both names to keep an eye on for this Brockport team, both breaking into the Empire 8’s top 25 scoring games this season with 29 and 31 points respectively. 

All Empire 8 Men’s Basketball first round games will be played on Saturday Feb. 21. St. John Fisher at Russell Sage and SUNY Brockport at SUNY Poly will begin at 2 p.m. while Keuka at Nazareth and Utica at Geneseo will both tip off at 4 p.m..