Loudonville, N.Y. – When Gerry McNamara considered taking the head basketball coaching job at Siena University a couple of years ago, he wanted to be sure of a few things.
During negotiations, he asked for more money to pay staff. And after Siena hired him, he sought to surround himself with people he knew and trusted, people he believed could help the Saints win.
He hired Ben Lee, a former assistant for Mike Hopkins at Washington, a Power Five program. And then, he hired three people with Syracuse ties.
Arinze Onuaku and McNamara were Syracuse teammates in 2005-06; Onuaku was a senior on SU’s 2009-10 team when McNamara was a grad assistant. Onuaku coached in the G League and at a powerhouse Washington, D.C. high school.
Ryan Blackwell, another former SU player, won a state championship and five Section III titles as Liverpool High School’s head coach.
Ryan Beaury was a video coordinator and former manager of the SU basketball program. He came to Albany as Siena’s director of basketball operations.
McNamara, too, hired Beaury’s dad, Brian, as a special assistant. Brian Beaury won 654 games in a 33-year career as head coach of Division II College of St. Rose.
Occasionally, when practices or games didn’t interfere, the Syracuse alums gathered to watch Orange basketball games at McNamara’s house. Sometimes, they caught a game on a bus ride to or from a basketball destination.
“We always watch Syracuse when we can,” Blackwell said. “When we have time, we’re glued. We’re always supportive of Red and Griff and the rest of the staff. And Syracuse basketball always.”
“We watched the majority of the games,” Onuaku said. “We kept tabs on what’s going on up there.”
Their primary focus, though, was to elevate Siena from a 4-28 season back to MAAC prominence.
EMMITSBURG, MARYLAND – JANUARY 11: Head coach Gerry McNamara of the Siena Saints signals to his players during a college basketball game against the Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers at the Knott Arena on January 11, 2026 in Emmitsburg, Maryland. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)Getty Images
The Siena job interested McNamara because other coaches had succeeded there.
The fan base was hungry to embrace the Siena dominance of teams coached by Fran McCaffery, Mike Deane and Paul Hewitt. Louis Orr went 20-10 his only season there before Seton Hall hired him. Carmen Maciariello won his first couple seasons at Siena before bottoming out his final year.
McNamara, Blackwell and Onuaku have talked all season about how much their Saints bought in, how focused and determined they were at every practice, every game.
But Siena coaches, too, played a part in shaping a team that will play its first NCAA Tournament game since 2010. The No. 16 Saints play No. 1 Duke at 2:50 p.m., Thursday in a game televised by CBS.
They lost 6-foot-10 starting big man Tasman Goodrick (9.7 points per game, 7.3 rebounds per game) just 10 games into the year with a knee injury that required season-ending surgery. They lost 6-7 wing Reid Ducharme to a season-ending shoulder injury. They lost Antonio Chandler, a 6-6 forward and Siena’s leading rebounder, to an NCAA ruling about his eligibility on Feb. 25. Chandler started 29 games for Siena.
Freshman Owen Schlager (rib) and big man Riley Mulvey (concussion) dealt with injuries, too.
And still, Siena won.
“We’re a bonded coaching staff,” Onuaku said. “We challenge each other but we kinda think the same way. We break down opponents and get our team ready to go and play games, I think, at a very high level. And these guys have downloaded the information we’ve been giving them day in and day out and they’ve been locked in.”
McNamara said the relationships he had with those Syracuse-centric guys influenced his decision to hire them. But since they’ve been at Siena, he said, they’ve proven to be the right fits.
“I had the chance to play with Arinze and then coach him and watch him go through his process. He is brilliant,” McNamara said. “And Ryan was obviously proven as a high school coach and I knew if he got in front of people he’d knock it out of the park. Ryan Beaury, I worked hand-in-hand with, trained him as (an SU) manager. He and I have worked offensively together, bouncing stuff off each other, for almost a decade.”
Neither Onuaku nor Blackwell had Division I college coaching experience when McNamara hired them. Blackwell played college basketball from 1995-2000. He’d been out of the college game for more than two decades.
“The landscape has totally changed,” Blackwell said. “But Gerry showed me what this business is about and gave me direction, you know, who to know on the AAU scene, the right people to know and how the business operates in the NIL world. I just learned a lot about this business.”
Onuaku and Blackwell marvel at McNamara’s attention to detail, his focus on the fundamentals. He’ll stop practice to point out how to properly come off screens, to demonstrate the right way to box out or make a specific pass.
Siena forward Francis Folefac said executing the little things McNamara demands each day have “led to big moments in the game.” Siena star Gavin Doty said he wants to play for McNamara for the rest of his college career.
Strategies aside, it’s McNamara’s fire that still defines him, some 23 years after he helped Syracuse win its only national championship.
“He lets us play to our strengths and we improve on our weaknesses every day,” Folefac said. “He’s very passionate, very competitive and you know, he tells us to bring the energy every day and we just want to live up to his expectations.”
“You see it in all the best teams, the players kind of resemble who the coach is,” Blackwell said. “You know, he coaches the guys hard. He gets on them when they’re not playing hard. That’s how he was as a player and he expects that out of his players. They’re willing to play for him because they know regardless of how hard he can be, he loves them the next minute.”
In two short seasons, McNamara and his staff have Siena playing in the NCAA Tournament. The Saints, too, have the MAAC’s No. 1 high school recruiting class coming in next season. That class includes Chittenango’s Ryan Moesch.
On Sunday, Siena fans packed the UHY Center on campus for an NCAA Selection Show watch party. Those fans wore Siena green and gold. They mingled with players, with coaches. Kids got autographs and posed with their favorite Saints players.
“It’s just a remarkable turnaround and you could tell,” Blackwell said. “There’s a couple videos of the fans after we won. And kids were crying. People were crying. Seeing the tears come out of our players’ faces, it was an emotional time. Everyone’s on a high right now.”
