Syracuse men’s basketball is about to find out how far a reset can really go.
Gerry McNamara takes over a program that’s been stuck in a five-year March Madness drought, and he inherits a roster that barely resembles the one that finished the last season. Only Sadiq White Jr. and Kiyan Anthony are back from Syracuse’s 2025-26 team among scholarship players, while McNamara rebuilt around seven transfers and five freshmen. The new faces most likely to matter right away include Temple transfer Aiden Tobiason, Siena transfer Gavin Doty and four-star freshman Ryan Moesch.
The schedule won’t exactly make life easy, either. Syracuse has five Power Five nonconference games coming up: Indiana, No.
13 St. John’s, Oklahoma, Providence and Rutgers.
So where does that leave the Orange in McNamara’s first season? Our beat writers don’t agree on the outcome, but they do agree that this team has changed fast.
Nicholas Alumkal sees Syracuse ending the drought. He’s got the Orange at 22-10 overall and 10-8 in the ACC, with Tobiason as MVP and Mark Morano as the X-factor. Alumkal points to McNamara’s quick success at Siena, where he got the Saints into the tournament and nearly watched them push No. 1 overall seed Duke all the way, as evidence the new coach can steer Syracuse back to the bracket in Year 1.
Alumkal also likes the roster fit. He notes that McNamara kept White and Anthony in the fold, then added help on the perimeter after Syracuse finished second-to-last in the ACC in 3-point field goal percentage last season.
Tobiason hit 33.8% from deep and averaged 15.3 points per game at Temple, while Morano showed his shooting touch in an Oct. 18 exhibition against Siena by knocking down four triples. Alumkal expects Syracuse to lose most of its marquee neutral-site nonconference games but still do enough in league play to land on the right side of the bubble in an expanded tournament.
Noah Nussbaum isn’t buying a tournament return just yet. He has Syracuse at 18-14 and 8-10 in the ACC, with Doty as MVP and Moesch as the X-factor. Nussbaum does think the Orange will be better than they were under Adrian Autry, when the team posted back-to-back sub-.500 seasons, but he doesn’t see that improvement translating into a bid.
His case starts with the ACC’s standing in the selection picture. Even with the field expanded to 76 teams, Nussbaum thinks Syracuse could still get squeezed out in favor of a bubble team from another Power Five league.
He likes the potential leap from White, who he believes can take another step offensively while already bringing elite defense. He also expects Doty and Tobiason to give the offense real structure, and said Moesch has impressed in all three Syracuse exhibitions by leading the team in assists each time.
Mauricio Palmar takes the opposite view and has Syracuse back in March at 20-12 and 9-9 in the ACC. His MVP pick is White, with Moesch as the X-factor.
Palmar argues that White’s improved jumper could turn him into a legitimate three-level scorer, while the defensive backbone of the roster should stay strong with pieces like Luke Wilson and Garwey Dual around him. He also sees Moesch as the player who could create shots late in games.
For Palmar, the biggest difference is the expanded NCAA Tournament. He says Syracuse might not have enough on its résumé for a 68-team field, but 76 teams changes the math. In his view, 20 wins should be enough, and the Orange have the roster to get there.
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