Last season, the Stony Brook men’s basketball team was one shot away from a March Madness bid. After losing four starters and their sixth man to a combination of graduation and the transfer portal, the Seawolves now look for redemption with plenty of new faces.
Stony Brook finished its 2023-24 campaign with a 20-15 overall record, including a 10-8 mark during the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) regular season, which earned it the seventh seed for the conference tournament. After dispatching Northeastern in the CAA Championship’s second round, the Seawolves won thrillers over Drexel and Hofstra to advance to the title game against the top-seeded Charleston. However, a 82-79 overtime loss ended Stony Brook’s magical run.
“Our expectation every year is to get better throughout the season and play our best basketball in March,” head coach Geno Ford said in an interview with The Statesman. “This year, we’ve got nine first-year guys out of 13 scholarship spots, so definitely a lot of new faces.”
In the 2024-25 CAA men’s basketball preseason poll, the Seawolves were tabbed to finish ninth in the conference by coaches around the league. Despite the low ranking, Stony Brook’s goal is to reach the NCAA Tournament this season, which, if it materializes, will take place without guards Aaron Clarke, Dean Noll and Tyler Stephenson-Moore. Additionally, forward Chris Maidoh and center Keenan Fitzmorris are also gone. The five spearheaded a Seawolves offense that ranked fourth in points per game in the league last year with 73.5.
In an attempt to remedy those losses, Ford brought in five players from the transfer portal in the offseason. Arguably the most notable signing is guard Joe Octave, a graduate student who spent time at Air Force and Holy Cross before landing on Long Island.
“[Octave] is as high a quality a human being as any of us could ever be around,” Ford said. “The guys really respect [Octave] as a person, and he’s also a very good player, so that makes it easier for him to take a leadership role.”
Last season with the Crusaders, Octave appeared in 31 games and averaged 14.6 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game on a .430/.293/.721 shooting line. He finished sixth in the Patriot League in points per game and 10th in rebounds per game on the way to a 2023-24 Third-Team All Patriot League selection.
Octave was the only Seawolf to be recognized in the preseason poll, as he was named a 2024-25 All-CAA Preseason Honorable Mention. To repeat the successes of last year — especially during the latter half of its campaign — Stony Brook will likely need Octave to fill the void left by Stephenson-Moore, who posted 16.6 points on a .446/.435/.848 slashline in his final season with the Seawolves. He was named to the 2023-24 All-CAA Second Team and selected to the 2024 CAA All-Tournament Team.
“I just want to be in a position where I can win, help push a culture forward and develop as a player,” Octave said. “This was the best spot for me.”
While Octave possesses the attributes of a natural guard, he will likely play small forward, as Ford plans on having three guards in his starting lineup. Octave’s counterpart on the wing will be guard C.J. Luster II, another notable addition from the portal. A sharpshooter, Luster II registered 16.4 points on 47.9% three-point shooting with National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA)’s Salt Lake Community College last year.
Luster II was ranked by JucoRecruiting.com as the 22nd best Junior College (JUCO) player in the nation for the 2023-24 season. While he will aid Octave in filling the scoring gap left by Stephenson-Moore’s departure, Luster II’s primary role is to lead Stony Brook’s three-point attack. Anchored by Stephenson-Moore, the Seawolves had the second-highest team three-point percentage (35.7%) in the CAA and finished sixth in the conference in three-pointers per game (7.9) last season.
“[Luster II] is as good a shooter as has ever set foot on our campus,” Ford said. “He can really shoot it. He can shoot it under duress, he can shoot it in tight spaces, he can get them off quickly. He can really light it up when he gets it cooking.”
Another significant contributor for Stony Brook from beyond the arc this year will likely be a familiar face: guard Jared Frey. As a redshirt freshman in the 2023-24 campaign, Frey sank 36.8% of his three-point attempts while attempting the most out of any bench player with 125.
Alongside Frey, another massive returning piece for the Seawolves is forward Andre Snoddy. While he was not a major producer on the offensive side of the ball last year, Snoddy’s rebounding and defensive skills make him one of Ford’s most valuable assets. Last season, he led Stony Brook and was eighth in the league with 7.2 rebounds per game.
“My role is obviously bigger now,” Snoddy said. “My job is to be the biggest leader that I can and do anything to help the team win. That might be scoring some nights, it might be rebounding and being the best rebounder on the floor. Truly whatever it takes.”
Two other players that will start are a pair of newcomers: guard Collin O’Connor and forward Ben Wight.
O’Connor — a true freshman who played at Tecumseh and then Western Reserve Academy — has already secured his spot in Seawolves’ starting lineup and drawn praise from coaches and teammates alike.
“O’Connor will be the starting point guard for us,” Ford said. “He’s used to winning. He’s really far along as a freshman and I think he’s got a chance to be the premier point guard in our league at some point. He’s got a high ceiling.”
With the loss of Clarke and Noll — who both occupied the point guard role at some point in their Stony Brook tenure — O’Connor will have big shoes to fill.
“I think [O’Connor] has been playing great basketball for us,” Snoddy said. “He does a little bit of everything. He’s a smaller guard but he rebounds, he’s tough, he’s physical, he can score. He can do a lot of different things for us and I think that’s going to be great for us considering he’s also one of our best defenders.”
Conversely, Wight — who most recently played for Toledo — received limited playing time last year with the Rockets, as he only stepped foot on the court for 8.9 minutes per game. However, his experience in the CAA could pay dividends for the Seawolves. Before transferring to Toledo for his senior season in the 2023-24 campaign, Wight played for William & Mary for three years. In those three seasons, he averaged 9.9 points and 5.0 rebounds per game.
“The last time we played [Wight], he was at William & Mary and he scored 21 points and had nine rebounds against us in our building,” Ford said. “I’ve been very happy with [Wight]. I knew [Wight] would be a good player but he is a great worker and a great teammate, and I mean great in capital letters.”
Wight and Snoddy will carry much of the rebound responsibility for a Stony Brook team that placed fifth in the conference in rebounds per game (36.6) last year, which included a second-place ranking in defensive rebounds per contest (27.0).
Fitzmorris and Maidoh’s efforts — alongside Snoddy’s — helped the Seawolves become one of the best rebounding squads in the league, as the duo combined for 9.8 rebounds in the 2023-24 campaign.
The trio also contributed pronouncedly defensively. Stony Brook was a middle-of-the-road defensive team in the CAA last season, as it finished eighth in the conference in that department with 72.3 points allowed per game. Snoddy alone tallied 22 steals and 11 blocks.
“[Defense] comes with being tough [and] communicating,” Snoddy said. “We’ve taken steps forward in doing that. Me, [Octave] [and] Sabry [Philip] are the veteran guys, [so] we’re going to take the challenges throughout the season. We’re going to guard the best players. Coach [Dan] Rickard says all the time, ‘We’re always going to score enough points to win, so it’s going to come down to getting stops.’”
Philip and guard Toby Onyekonwu are notable options off the bench for Ford. They played 10.3 and 11.9 minutes per game last year, respectively, but with the aforementioned departures of Clarke and Noll, combined with the inexperience of some of the other guards on the roster, they should see an increase in playing time.
Contrary to Philip, Onyekonwu’s strength is his offense. However, he struggled shooting the ball last season, as he posted a .353/.262/.846 slashline. Still, he has shown flashes of excellence in his two years with the Seawolves.
“That’s all I really did this offseason, just work on three-point shooting,” Onyekonwu said. “That’s what we emphasize in practice daily, being able to catch-and-shoot threes.”
One of the most intriguing names that signed with Stony Brook in the offseason is forward Nick Woodard, who was ranked as the 44th-best JUCO player in the nation. In two seasons with NJCAA’s Southwest Tennessee Community College, Woodard posted 19.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game on a .487/.310/.739 triple slash.
“Offensively, I would tell you that [Woodard] is our most dynamic guy because he scores in three levels,” Ford said. “I view [Woodard] as a starter, whether he is in at the jump ball or not, I don’t know, but I can tell you that when it’s crunch time he’ll be in and that’s more important to me than whose name is called before the game.”
Overall, Ford is optimistic that the starting five of O’Connor, Luster II, Octave, Snoddy and Wight alongside the first four off the bench and the rest of the young core that features two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior will get the Seawolves back to where they want to be.
“We’re going to be a work in progress early in the year, but I’m not too worried about that,” Ford said. “I want to see us play with the energy that is required to win, and the execution will come. Hopefully by March we’ll be playing some pretty good basketball.”
Stony Brook’s 2024-25 journey begins on Nov. 4, when it faces the No. 18 Marquette Golden Eagles on the road in Milwaukee, W.I. Opening tip-off is scheduled for 8:30 p.m.
Cameron Takmil and Kiera Cassar also contributed reporting.
