Syracuse, N.Y. – The 2025-26 college basketball season starts Monday.
For the Syracuse Orange that means a home opener against Binghamton at the JMA Wireless Dome. It also means the start of a critically important season.
It’s Year 3 of the Adrian Autry era as Syracuse’s head coach. So far, Autry has yet to guide the Orange back to the NCAA Tournament, extending SU’s post-season drought to four years going back to the final two years of the Jim Boeheim era.
In Year 1, Autry led Syracuse to a 20-11 regular-season mark, the most regular-season wins for the Orange since 2014. No NCAA Tournament bid, but still, a sign of improvement amid tectonic-plate type change.
Last year, Syracuse took a significant and unsettling step backwards. The Orange finished the season with a 14-19 record.
As Syracuse opens the season with tonight’s home game against Binghamton, Autry is aware of the need to get the school’s tradition-rich basketball program back to its accustomed place – in the Top 25 and in the NCAA Tournament field.
“I want to make the tournament every year,’’ Autry said last month at the team’s annual media day. “I’m not here just to be mediocre.’’
The Syracuse-Binghamton game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and will be available on the ACC Network Extra.
Autry enters the season with something of an ambiguous mandate from SU athletic director John Wildhack, who last March said he expected the Orange to “play meaningful games in March.’’
As to exactly what he meant by that, Wildhack refused to be pinned down, but Autry made no bones about his own expectations for himself and the Orange.
“I want to make the tournament every year,’’ Autry said. “What (Wildhack) said, I think that’s what this community expects. I expect it, so (I’m) not shying away from that. That’s what I want, too.
“We want to be able to play meaningful games,’’ he continued. “We want to make deep March runs and try to win one. That’s the goal. That’s always the goal. So (Wildhack) saying that didn’t change my approach. That’s what I want.’’
Autry’s efforts to rebound from last year’s losing record began with the retention of two, and only two, key players from last year’s team – JJ Starling and Donnie Freeman.
Starling, a 6-foot-4 senior guard, led Syracuse in scoring last year at 17.8 points per game. Freeman, a 6-9 sophomore forward, is coming off a foot injury that sidelined him for the last 19 games of the 2024-25 season. But in 14 games before the injury, Freeman was averaging 13.4 points and 6.9 rebounds and showing signs of blossoming into an ACC All-Rookie team performer.
Both are expected to lead the Orange this year. They also provided a foundation, albeit a small one, upon which Autry and his staff would begin the rebuilding process.
“After last year, we sat down and we talked,’’ Autry said of conversations he had with both Starling and Freeman. “They both were in. They wanted to come back and believe in what we were doing.’’
Autry compiled a revamped roster with six transfers and five freshmen. Key among them are former Georgia Tech point guard Naithan George, who led the ACC in assists last year; former Oregon State wing Nate Kingz, who made 44% of his 3-point attempts last year; and former UCLA center William Kyle, who two years ago at South Dakota State was named the Summit League’s Defensive Player of the Year.
Those three started both of SU’s exhibition games along with Starling and Freeman.
Speaking of those exhibitions … the Orange did little to assuage fans’ concerns.
In a 10-point win over Buffalo, Syracuse frittered away an 18-point lead in the second half, allowing the Bulls to close to within four points with just over a minute remaining.
Then last Wednesday against Division II Pace, Syracuse trailed by one point with 13 minutes remaining. The Orange had played listless, lackluster basketball for 27 unsettling minutes before kicking its defense into gear and going on a 28-5 run.
Autry didn’t gloss over the Orange’s play in the aftermath of the 75-57 win.
“I didn’t think our ball pressure was good,’’ Autry said. “I didn’t think we kept people in front of us at times. I didn’t think we were in our gaps. You know, it seemed like everything that we worked on for the whole summer just kind of went out the door, so we gotta really address that.’’
One figures Autry used the last four days to, ahem, address that. One would also figure that the SU players will be a little more amped up for tonight’s regular-season curtain-raiser.
George, the junior from Georgia Tech, said the coaches would likely take the Pace game and get on the SU players in practice.
“They definitely will because we got so much more room to grow and they know they can get way more out of us,’’ he said. “We’ve got a very talented and just positive team. Coach is going to get us on the right track. We all trust Coach will lead us to where we want to be.’’
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