Syracuse angered a lot of fans and broke a lot of hearts when it changed its team names from Orangemen and Orangewomen to just Orange in the summer of 2004.

Well SU has done it again, this time breaking the heart of Jimmy Lyons and what was to be his American Basketball Association expansion team: the Orlando Orange Men.

Yes, the ABA still exists, even if it’s just a C-rate, 21st-century revival of the legendary league Julius Erving dominated in the 1970s.

And yes, a team wanted to use ‘Orange Men’ as its nickname. But since SU still has Orangemen trademarked, Orlando had to drop the name or face the threat of a Syracuse lawsuit.

‘We’re here in Florida where it’s all citruses and oranges,’ Lyons said about his original name choice. ‘I didn’t even know you could own a name called the Orangemen. I know you can get a team, but I didn’t know you could own the name.’

Well, you can own the name and Syracuse does.

Even though SU went all ‘Orange’ two years ago, it still owns active trademarks on both Orangemen and Orangewomen. In fact, SU’s director of news services, Kevin Morrow, says more than 300 licensees of paraphernalia that bear the old SU names still exist, so there’s still money being made.

Now, I love Syracuse and the Orangemen as much as the next guy, but this all makes me wonder. The Syracuse Athletics Department wants nothing to do with Orangemen and has made that clear with its entire Orange branding campaign.

But then here’s the university continuing to market and license SU products with Orangemen still on them.

So basically, SU is having its orange and slicing it, too.

‘The Orangemen mark is a name that goes back more than 100 years,’ Morrow said about SU’s sitting on the naming fence. ‘It’s still a name that resonates with many of our alumni and many of our fans and the university sees no reason to give up its rights to that mark.’

Well, if so many people associate with the name, why not bring it back?

If anybody could call themselves the Orange-anything, Lyons and his team sound legitimate. Florida’s state fruit is the orange, state drink is orange juice, state flower is the orange blossom. It reasons that their men could be orange, as well.

The only orange groves in Syracuse are expensive marble walkways, so credit Lyons for trying to christen his new team with a catchy, alliterative and logical name.

Turns out Lyons had never even heard of the Syracuse Orangemen, though, hard as that is to believe. His former business partner even had a group of lawyers check out the name to make sure he wasn’t using a taken moniker.

But Lyons said the message must have gotten lost along the way because he only found out last month that Syracuse was threatening a lawsuit.

‘The lawyers told me something different in regards to the name,’ Lyons said. ‘They said (Syracuse) dropped the name, so how can they trademark it? I’m just upset that if the university told them, (the lawyers) didn’t tell me.’

I understand both sides of the name game. Lyons just wanted a name that was no longer in popular use and that legitimately described his new team. Syracuse wanted to protect their trademark and their money.

But Syracuse athletics has tossed its old name to the sharks and ignored it like a drunken uncle, while Syracuse University is still milking the cash cow.

I get the deep attachment; Syracuse and Orangemen had a lot of good memories together. But this name thing is like dumping your girlfriend for someone you thought was hotter and then punching a stranger in the face when he tries to get your ex’s number at the bar two years later.

Dude, she’s either your girlfriend or she’s not – make a decision.

Legally, Lyons is wrong. Morally, it’s up for debate.

I guarantee no team will ever garner as much fame or spotlight using Orangemen as Syracuse did. And in the case of the Orlando team, they weren’t directly profiting off SU. They weren’t tricking people into thinking the team was Syracuse-related when really it was a bait-and-switch with the Orangemen name.

As it stands now, Lyons’ team will simply be known as the ABA’s Orlando franchise until they come up with a new name.

And Morrow said he’s not sure how long Syracuse has Orangemen trademarked for, but that it’s a safe bet the university will hold on to it for a long while.

The time has come for Syracuse to stop wavering.

If the athletic department wants to rename and re-brand the program Orange, then the school should follow.

Come on SU – it’s time to go one way or the other.