Gerry McNamara’s first home game as Syracuse’s men’s basketball coach felt less like a routine season opener and more like a homecoming built around one man.
When he emerged from the locker room tunnel at the JMA Wireless Dome, the place erupted. McNamara tapped his heart and lifted a hand in quiet thanks as the crowd stood and roared for him before Syracuse’s opener against New Haven.
By then, the night had already been framed around him. The team was on Jim Boeheim Court, introduced and waiting, while the video board turned into a tribute reel to McNamara’s basketball life.
The highlights rolled from his days as a high school standout to his college career and then to his work as a coach, with John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” playing underneath. The message was clear enough: GMac is back.
Since being hired in Match, McNamara has tried to sell a simple idea - that Syracuse can return to the kind of relevance it once had, with NCAA Tournament trips, marquee games and the kind of pride the program carried when he was on the floor.
The scene in the dome backed up that belief. The building was packed with energy, and it looked like a lot of the fans had shown up wearing McNamara’s jersey.
Syracuse even handed out 5,000 of them to early arrivals, and they showed up everywhere: on cheerleaders, on members of the dance team and throughout the student section. New shirts with “GMac is back” were there too, including on Sue Lepkowski of Liverpool and Barbara Ashby of Syracuse, who bought theirs at Wegmans.
Ashby said she last attended a game in 2023. Lepkowski had been away from the dome even longer. Both came back because of McNamara and the memories he left behind.
“It’s awesome to come back,” Lepkowski said, “with him as the coach.”
The ovation carried extra weight because of what McNamara was dealing with away from the court. His father, Gerard, died on Saturday at 78 after a battle with cancer. A Marine veteran, Gerard was known for his devotion to family and had attended all 135 games during McNamara’s four-year Syracuse career with his wife, Joyce.
That same sense of loyalty has long defined McNamara’s own path. On Monday night, he hugged his new bosses, athletic director Bryan Blair and Chancellor Mike Haynie, on his way out, then took in the crowd’s reaction with a silent acknowledgment.
Jim Boeheim, the coach who led Syracuse to a national title and more than four decades of success, watched from courtside. On the other side of the floor sat McNamara’s wife, Katie, and his mother.
It all added up to a charged moment in a building that can still feel like a major-stage basketball venue when it wants to be. For one night, the focus wasn’t just on a game against New Haven. It was on the return of a familiar face, and on a fan base ready to believe again.
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