The Brockport Golden Eagles Men’s Basketball team went through many changes heading into the 2025-26 season, adding nine new faces with only six returners from last year. After rising to first place in the Empire 8 just a season ago, the Golden Eagles rested at fifth place in a competitive year for the conference.
Brockport’s first season in the Empire 8 paired with first-year head coach Joe Clarke resulted in a dominant run throughout the conference. The Golden Eagles finished the 2024-25 season with a 17-10 overall record and a 14-2 record in Empire 8 play, which was good for first in the conference.
Brockport looked to continue off that success despite a slower start. While the 2025-26 Golden Eagles started off 5-10, the team never quit and rode a nine-game win streak all the way to the Empire 8 finals. The men finished at a 16-12 overall record with a 10-6 record in conference play.
“To be honest with you, it was really hard,” Clarke said. “I expected a turnaround with the staff’s belief and hard work. I didn’t know the turnaround to be kind of what we got the last three to four weeks of the season, and that’s credit to the players. We really dug deep.”
The Golden Eagles closed out the season with an 8-4 record at home and on the road while going 0-4 at neutral sites. Since late January, Brockport won nine of its last 10 matchups to close out the regular season and clinch the No. 5 seed in the Empire 8 tournament.
In the Empire 8 playoffs, Brockport traveled to face No. 4 SUNY Poly in the quarterfinals where a high-scoring 84-75 victory led the Golden Eagles to the semifinals. The team got a good break in the tournament allowing them to face No. 8 St. John Fisher at home. The momentum continued as Brockport won 74-57 to make its first conference finals appearance since 2020 and bump their win streak to nine straight.
Things came to a stop for the Golden Eagles in the Empire 8 finals against No. 7 Keuka. Brockport hosted the lower seed and after a back-and-forth affair, the Keuka Wolves claimed an 83-80 win for their first Empire 8 championship in any sport and an NCAA DIII tournament bid. Despite the loss, the Golden Eagles have amounted a 24-8 record in the Empire 8 conference throughout their first two years alongside a 3-2 postseason record.
“It was pretty good, just how we ended the year with momentum and belief,” Clarke said. “I think that spiraled into the first and second rounds and a little bit into the championship game. You know we rode that momentum; I think the players were feeling good and confident and at that point we had the whole room believing that we were one of the hottest teams and most dangerous team.”
Seniors were an integral part of this team. Paving the way for Brockport were senior guard/forwards Omar White and Jacob Oka alongside senior guard Zachary Rice who missed a majority of the season with an injury. These Golden Eagles provided leadership throughout the ups and downs of the season, filling in for a total of seven departing seniors from 2024-25.
Oka paced Brockport starting 25 out of 28 games and averaged 13.1 points per game (PPG) on 45.7% shooting from the field. On top of the scoring, Oka also provided 6.3 rebounds per game (RPG), two assists per game (APG) and two steals per game (STL/G).
The height of Oka’s season came on Jan. 31, 2026, at home against the Hartwick Hawks. In the 81-63 win, Oka dropped a career-high 31 points on 10-for-16 shooting from the field. The senior also finished 10-for-12 at the charity stripe while grabbing nine rebounds, two assists and one steal.
The Empire 8 recognized Oka with an All-Conference Second Team selection and an All-Tournament Team selection, both of those awards being the first selections of his four-year career as a Golden Eagle. The senior finishes his Brockport career with 799 total points (7.6 PPG), 486 rebounds (4.6 RPG), 112 steals (1.1 STL/G) and 96 assists (0.9 APG).
“Oka has been with us for four years, he’s going to be truly missed,” Clarke said. “He’s a guy that in our program we go through a lot of ups and downs because we love on him hard and invest a lot into our players. He’ll be a guy that it has nothing to do with his basketball, just being missed with a smile and his presence in practice and off the court, just how he is.”
Omar White transferred from Monroe Community College and started all 28 appearances for the Golden Eagles. White averaged 7.3 PPG on 54.2% shooting from the field. The MCC transfer also recorded 4.8 RPG, 2.1 APG and 2.0 STL/G across all of those starts, even leading the team in offensive rebounds with a total of 66.
“We all got accepted easily,” White said. “We all just had to make an identity for ourselves. Coming here to Brockport really taught me patience because being around a younger group of people that are coming straight out of high school is like ‘Alright, how do I work around certain ways they might act?’ and I have to adapt to that but also show them that you have to be a grown man too, on and off the court.”
Camron Dyer looks to take over some leadership for Brockport entering his senior season next year. The Niagara County Community College transfer provided an instant impact in his first year as a Golden Eagle averaging 11.7 PPG on 40.8% shooting. The junior also averaged five RPG, 2.1 APG, and 1.5 STL/G. With those stats, Dyer earned a spot on the All-Conference Third Team.
Pharell Aybar will be another name to watch for Brockport next season, the freshman from A. Philip Randolph High School started 26 out of 28 games for the Golden Eagles. In those games, he averaged 11.6 PPG on 46.4% shooting from the field and added 4.3 RPG, a team-high 3.3 APG and 1.6 STL/G. Aybar collected multiple awards from the Empire 8 for his play, most notably the Empire 8 Rookie of the Year award after receiving six different Empire 8 Rookie of the Week awards throughout the season. The freshman also received a selection to the All-Conference Third Team.
“Right away we knew how good he could be,” Clarke said. “We knew how good he was coming out of high school, that’s obviously why we recruited him and we were very happy to get him. With the injuries we had and the kind of makeup of the team, we selfishly had to put him out there from the start. What we saw in preseason and then leading into early season practices, he did more things than just score the ball.”
The Golden Eagles rostered a total of six new freshman including Aybar. Kameron Langdon, Cameron Pownall, Seth Charlton, Jack Clancy, Ajani Flemming and Bryce Marshall all played a part in the strong season for Brockport and will continue to be key pieces for the Golden Eagles moving into next season.
The season ended right at the cusp of an Empire 8 championship and an NCAA DIII tournament bid, yet the Golden Eagles fought through adversity and injuries to produce a strong season in Brockport’s history. After leaving with a bad taste in their mouth to end 2025, Brockport is ready to reload for a championship push next season.
