Gerry McNamara’s Syracuse coaching debut came with a win, but the night carried a weight that went far beyond the final score.
The Orange opened the 2026-27 season Monday with a 74-58 victory over New Haven at the JMA Wireless Dome, giving McNamara a successful first game as head coach just two days after the death of his father, Gerard, at age 78.
Before the ball went up, Syracuse made the moment about McNamara’s journey back home. The night began with an extended video, about five minutes long, chronicling his path from Scranton, Pa., to Syracuse, where he built his legacy first as a player and now returns as the program’s head coach.
When he came out of the tunnel, the building let him know exactly how it felt. The crowd roared, celebrating both his return and offering support in the wake of his family’s loss.
McNamara responded by tapping his chest and waving to the fans. In the bleachers across from the SU bench, his wife Katie, their four children and his mother, Joyce, watched the emotional pregame scene.
Once the game started, Syracuse wasted no time taking control. The Orange scored the first 18 points and kept New Haven off the board for nearly eight minutes. That early burst set the tone for a first half in which Syracuse never let the Chargers get comfortable, taking a 39-17 lead into the break.
Defense did plenty of the work. New Haven shot 26% from the field in the first half and went 2-for-10 from 3-point range as Syracuse smothered the Chargers, who are in only their second season at the NCAA Division I level.
The second half was more uneven, even if the result never really felt in doubt. Syracuse stayed comfortably in front, but McNamara made it clear he wasn’t thrilled with how the Orange finished. He used timeouts and showed his frustration multiple times as New Haven, in his view, “beat” Syracuse by six points after halftime.
“He’d be as disgusted am I right now,” McNamara said on the ACC Network Extra broadcast when asked how his father would have reacted.
“My dad was a hoop junkie just like me,” McNamara said later. “I’d be calling him tonight if that were the case, and we’d be venting together.”
On the floor, Gavin Doty and Sadiq White each turned in double-doubles for Syracuse. Doty, the Fulton, N.Y., native who followed McNamara from Siena to Syracuse, finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds.
White added 14 points and 10 boards. Kiyan Anthony led the Orange in scoring with 17 points off the bench.
The game also served as the first look at McNamara’s rebuilt roster, but the broader story was the man on the sideline and his return to the dome. McNamara became a Syracuse legend during his four years as a player, including a starring role as a freshman on the 2003 national championship team. In that title game against Kansas, he jump-started the Orange by knocking down six 3-pointers.
He finished his playing career with more than 2,000 points, then came back to the program as a graduate assistant under Jim Boeheim three years after graduating. Boeheim later promoted him to full-time assistant in 2011, and McNamara stayed on at Syracuse under Boeheim and then Adrian Autry for the next 13 years.
Before returning to his alma mater, McNamara spent the last two seasons as Siena’s head coach. He took over a team that had won just four games the year before his arrival, improved the Saints by 10 wins in his first season and then guided them to the MAAC tournament title and an NCAA Tournament berth last year. Siena nearly pulled off an upset of No. 1 seed Duke in the first round before falling 71-66.
Now Syracuse fans are waiting to see whether that kind of turnaround can follow him back to the Orange.
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