Seawolves Fans

Why would Stony Brook want to associate itself with lowly schools like CCSU?

Stony Brook is too good and popular of a school to be in the same conference as New Hampshire, Maine, UMass Lowell, NJIT, and (formerly) Hartford, which if I didn't follow the America East, I would have assumed those were all D2/D3 schools. If you told me when I was a student here at Stony Brook back in the early 2010s that in 10 years, we would still be in this conference, I would have laughed.

I don't mind the flagship state schools in New England. Nothing wrong with Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. But when you start going down to UMass Lowell, NJIT, and Hartford it does bother me a little bit as it doesn't feel like a natural fit for Stony Brook

UConn, UMass, and Rutgers would be more natural fit in those states.

But we also need to realize where we come from to understand better why we are here. Stony Brook was founded in 1957 which is very recent relative to other northern universities. It grew very quickly and gained a strong academic reputation in just a few decades. But we only joined Division I in the late 90s. We joined the party late and the pecking order in athletics was already established. We are also a victim of our geographic location. The appetite for college sports in the Northeast is not the same as down south. A school like Central Florida which was founded after Stony Brook was able to climb the college athletics ranks much faster - But Florida is a huge market for college sports. Even a directional school like UCF can draw 40k football crowds in a state where UF/FSU draw 80k crowds

For Stony Brook the road will definitely be a much longer one. Our best bet is for us to continue to support our alma mater and hopefully some day it achieves critical mass. Maybe we win a big game in the NCAAs in the future which catapults us into a better league/draws more fans. For now I say we should continue doing things right - invest in facilities, run a clean program, compete in all sports, strive to be the best in the America East until those days come.