Carmelo Anthony isn’t looking at Kiyan Anthony’s freshman season at Syracuse as a setback. He’s looking at it as the kind of year that can sharpen a player for what comes next.
Kiyan Anthony, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard, averaged 8.0 points last season for the Orange. The scoring flashes were there, but so were the rough edges. He shot 39% from the field and just 25% from 3-point range, and his defense also stood out as a problem area.
Still, Carmelo Anthony said the bumps in the road may be exactly what his son needed before heading into the 2026-27 season.
“The best thing that could have happened to him was having that experience as a freshman,” Carmelo Anthony said during a recent interview prior to last week’s Summer Slam at the home of SU booster Vinny Lobdell. “Because now he gets the opportunity to look back and see where he made mistakes at, see what went wrong, see what he can get better at, but also, you know, have that one year of experience.”
He acknowledged that watching it unfold as a father wasn’t easy.
“I mean, you don’t want to see your son, your kid, daughter or son, struggle, but because I have the wherewithal to understand what’s going on, we can get through it,” Anthony said. “It’s nothing that we can’t get through.”
Part of why Carmelo Anthony believes the path forward is clear is because Kiyan’s route was never going to mirror his own. Carmelo Anthony left Syracuse after one season and turned pro after leading the Orange to the NCAA championship in 2003. Kiyan, by contrast, was always expected to stay longer.
“We always knew that, you know, he was never going to be a one-and-done player,” Anthony said. “We knew that from the jump.
So we always wanted to get our feet wet and see what the first season was going to be, whether it was going to be good or bad. Who could have predicted that?
“But it allowed us to see where we needed to work at,” he continued. “So now you attack the postseason and the off-season like that and allow yourself to actually hear the noise and receive the noise because now you have something to be motivated for.”
The comparisons between father and son come with the territory, and Carmelo Anthony said Kiyan has handled that pressure well.
“Yeah, of course it’s hard, especially when you being compared to somebody who actually did it to the highest level,” Carmelo Anthony said. “But again, time periods are different. I did it in my era.
“So I get to open the door for him and allow him to see the actual journey,” Anthony added. “And he was there for my development process.
Right? So he understands that it takes time.”
Syracuse will also look different around him next season. Kiyan Anthony is set to play for his second coach in as many years after the Orange fired Adrian Autry and hired former SU player Gerry McNamara from Siena. McNamara and Carmelo Anthony were teammates on the 2003 national championship team.
When Kiyan committed to Syracuse, Autry was heading into his second year after a 20-12 debut. By the time Anthony was a high school senior, Syracuse had gone 14-19. Autry entered what became Anthony’s freshman season on the hot seat and stayed there throughout the year.
“So now we can start off fresh,” Carmelo Anthony said. “We have a fresh plate that we can come into our sophomore season.”
There’s also been physical progress. In a recent interview with Syracuse.com, Kiyan Anthony said he had added 12 pounds since the end of the 2025-26 season, putting him nearly 23 pounds heavier than when he arrived on campus a year ago.
“I’m proud of his development,” Anthony said. “This was always part of the process and part of the plan of development. And so to see it actually happening and coming into fruition, it validates the actual plan and the strategy of where we want it to be at this moment.”
For now, Carmelo Anthony’s message to his son is simple.
“Go have fun,” Anthony said. “Go have fun.
Don’t care about the numbers. Go have fun.
Let the game speak for itself. Let the development speak for itself.
“But I believe, and I know that he will have a special year this year.”
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Nazir Ward arrives at Syracuse with the kind of rsum that usually earns a closer look, even if it does not come with much national buzz. The redshirt junior spent last season at Western Kentucky, where he was on the field for every game and showed a little bit of everything in the secondary, from tackles and backfield disruption to a takeaway and several pass breakups. He came to Syracuse after entering the portal in December and committing on January 11, giving the Orange another experienced defensive piece as they keep reshaping the back end of the roster.
What makes Ward especially interesting is the way Syracuse plans to use him. He is reportedly moving from defensive back to safety, and that shift could put him in direct competition for a starting job in a secondary that figures to be one of the more closely watched parts of the defense. Ward also joins a familiar pipeline from Miami Northwestern, alongside Tedarius Hughes, Darius Johnson and Calvin Russell, which gives Syracuse another layer of continuity as it tries to sort out who fits where before the season starts. [Read more 🡒]
Carmelo Anthony Sounds Alarm On What Syracuse Still Lacks
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Anthony also stressed that the program cannot afford to drift away from its former players, who have long been part of its identity and its selling point to recruits and fans alike. He made clear there is a broader conversation happening behind closed doors about what Syracuse needs to compete at a high level again, but for now the exact answer remains part of the mystery. [Read more 🡒]
Syracuse Schedule Reveal Says A Lot About Gerry McNamaras First Test
The first season under Gerry McNamara is going to be judged in part by how Syracuse handles the non-conference slate, and the early schedule reveal already says plenty about the challenge ahead. After a 15-17 finish last year, the Orange have gone into roster-building mode with transfers coming in and holdovers like Kiyan Anthony and Sadiq White still in place, but the tone of the calendar is unmistakable: Indiana in Indianapolis, Oklahoma in Norman, Providence in Boston and Canisius at the Dome give McNamara a mix of road tests and familiar pressure points before the real grind begins.
Binghamton also sits on the list, which matters for more than local bragging rights. Syracuse handled that matchup comfortably on Opening Night last season, and Anthony was the only returning player from that game, making the rematch a small but telling marker for how much the roster has changed. With the non-conference schedule now mapped out, the only real question is how the Orange want to be measured before league play arrives. [Read more 🡒]