SYRACUSE, N.Y. – As soon as he knew Georgia Tech point guard Naithan George had entered the transfer portal, JJ Starling sent a text to the Syracuse coaching staff. Starling felt George was the kind of
player Syracuse was looking for to play point guard for the 2025-26 team.
“Hey, we gotta go get him,” Starling texted the staff.
Starling, intent to return for a senior year to play under Adrian Autry, was brought into the roster construction process along with Donnie Freeman. Retaining those two stars was paramount for Autry. Building a roster around them with talented players like George was a must to get the Syracuse program back to where it needs to be. Not long after encouraging the Syracuse staff to recruit George, Starling was on FaceTime with the Orange’s next point guard.
“Nait George is like my best friend,” Starling said. “He sees the floor, he makes the right reads. He’s selfless. I’m really excited to be able to call him my backcourt mate.”
Starling pitched George on accomplishing something at Syracuse that hasn’t been done in a few years: getting back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021. As a competitor, the idea of bringing Syracuse back to prominence had George invested. Of course, NIL and compensation are a big part any player’s decision. The relationship the staff wanted to build with George stood out to him.
“Shoot. When I got in the portal I heard from Syracuse right away,” George said. “After that it was non-stop. Just hearing from them consistently. That was the main thing.”
Syracuse needed a high-level point guard that was proven at the Power Four level. Autry also needed a compatible backcourt mate for Starling. A natural scoring guard, Starling had to play point guard out of necessity last season. Acquiring a ready-made point guard with the intangibles to lead, command the offense and alleviate defensive pressure was a must.
“We went all-in on him,” Autry said at media day. “It was some battles, but we went all-in on him. I mean, (he’s) a guy that can lead your team, that can score, that can get people in place. He plays the position. You don’t have to teach him the position. And a guy that’s proven. He was proven at this level. It was a no-brainer for us.”
George was picked as captain along with Starling to lead this talented group of Syracuse players. After two years as an underdog at Georgia Tech, the 6-foot-3 guard knows what it’s like to compete in the ACC. He been a part of punchy Yellow Jacket teams that have upset ranked teams like Louisville, Duke and North Carolina. An experienced guard, he’s equipped to lead.
“Getting them prepared for the atmosphere and the types of games we’re going to be in,” George said of his leadership approach and experience. “So just the dog fights and just those road games – whether it’s playing at UNC, Duke – and just coming in with that mentality that every game is a battle. I say I got that.”
The Syracuse staff was consistent in the “love that they showed” George throughout the portal process. Autry and Syracuse assistant Brendan Straughn reached out to him daily and showed care for him as a person, not just a basketball player. The staff stood out to George and so did being a part of something larger than oneself. As he answered questions from the Syracuse locker room, a legendary figure and father of one of the current players walked by and reached his hand out to greet George.
“I just (saw) how big the community was so I wanted to be a part of it. And just the rich history of it,” George said. “And you just seen Carmelo Anthony right there. He’s part of the rich history that brought Syracuse a National Championship. I just want to be a part of another legendary team.”
George, a native of Toronto, is now playing basketball closer to home. He’s one of nine children. Since high school he’s spent much of his basketball career away from home. At Syracuse his family can get to games a little easier now.
“Family is just everything to me,” George said, “and I have a big family. They’re definitely going to be at more games.”
George interacts with those around him in an affable way. He’s respectful, authentic and exudes all the clichéd Canadian niceties one might expect from those north of the United States border. He’s exceedingly likable, talks with a Toronto twang and is rarely without a smile. It makes sense that he would feel the pull toward Syracuse and its staff — George has noted the concern they showed for his well-being and how they wanted to create a relationship with him as a person first.
“They’re great dudes and just people that care. I get along with people like that,” George says.
He appreciated how the Syracuse staff was “personable.” It reminded him of home.
“Being closer to home is definitely a benefit for him,” Starling said. “I mean he has a lot of family that comes and supports the games. It’s good that he’s able to put on for his town not too far down the road.”
Syracuse has historically done well with players from Canada, including one point guard from Toronto in particular. While their games might look different stylistically, the pass-first nature of their approach to basketball are strikingly synonymous. It’s easy to draw parallels with George and Syracuse’s point guard from 2013-14.
After committing to the Orange program George heard from Tyler Ennis. Originally from the Toronto suburb of Brampton, Ennis starred at Syracuse in his lone season on the way to a program-best 25-0 start before becoming the No. 18 pick in the NBA Draft. While expectations at Syracuse are more realistic for this year’s team, the under-control ball-handling against pressure and calm demeanor of Ennis and George is very much similar.
“He said I could reach out to him whenever I need to,” George said of Ennis. “I’ll definitely be doing that because he knows what it takes to win at Syracuse and lead a team. He was (just) a freshman as well so I can learn a lot from him.”
George is wearing No. 11 with Syracuse this season, the same number Ennis wore in his single season with the Orange. Both point guards prefer to get teammates involved. Ennis had a little more quickness and craft around the rim whereas George is a little more physical and better rebounding the ball. As a youth growing up, George watched Ennis.
“I just watched him growing up as well. Just seeing him doing certain things in Canada. I’m just a young kid growing up. I just so happened to end up at the same school. It’s a blessing,” George said.
While George paid attention to Ennis growing up, there was another point guard who grew up in Canada that he tried to emulate.
“I watched a lot of Steve Nash growing up,” George said. “Just the way he engages with his teammates and keeps everybody going. He’s not the fastest. He’s not the strongest. But he still finds ways to impact the game.”
George might as well have been describing himself. After leading the ACC in assists last season, his 6.8 assists per game this season rank him No. 16 in the country. Syracuse’s designated dime-dropper has an impeccable 3.8 assist-to-turnover ratio through four games. He says his instinct to pass actually came from a lack of confidence in his shooting growing up, preferring to give teammates the glory of scoring. George doesn’t lack for confidence now and has no difficulty scoring when it’s available to him. He’s scored in double-figures in three of Syracuse’s four games.
“I thought he did a really good job directing us. I thought he decided to try to attack the basket a little bit more instead of trying to make passes. I thought he was a little bit more aggressive,” Autry said following the Drexel game. “He’s a guy that can make shots. He’s a guy that can finish in the paint.”
George isn’t just a table-setter. Teams scout George knowing he’s looking to pass and have been playing him in drop coverage off of ball screens. That kind of coverage discourages the pass. But George has adjusted and started attacking the drop to score. He’s also connecting from outside when defenses sag off, going 6-13 from beyond the arc to start the year.
George comes to Syracuse along with his longtime teammate Ibrahim Souare, originally from Conakry, Guinea. Two two were teammates at Georgia Tech as well as in high school at Dream City Christian in Glendale, Arizona. The two insist they weren’t a package deal despite having developed a close relationship over the years, but George has become “like a brother” to Souare.
“I know most of his family,” Souare says. “Everybody. I even know Canadian slang and everything.”
After post-game interviews are complete, the two often leave the locker room together, sometimes taking lighthearted verbal shots at one another like longtime friends do. They’ll often get food together. Souare says George likes to play cards and video games.
“And,” Souare says, “talking sh*t about me sometimes.”
This was on display in Philadelphia after the Drexel game. George was throwing playful jabs at Souare in the bowels of XFinity Mobile Arena before getting on the team bus.
The two played soccer together in their spare time at Georgia Tech. Souare insists he’s the better soccer player of the two. They just like to “be hanging out” when there’s downtime. Naturally, Souare has many stories with George, some that he can’t share. One that he was willing to share includes a story of Damon Stoudamire from their time at Georgia Tech. From the team locker room Stoudamire joked about George’s hair, which was much longer when he was with the Yellow Jackets.
Impersonating Stoudamire, Souare said, “You know Nate starts getting tired or starts getting stressed, shaking his hair like, ‘Man! Man! Somebody gotta get open!’”
Soure imitated his former head coach by jumping up and down, putting his hands in a sphere motion around his hair as if to show his hair bouncing like a basketball.
“It’s just funny the way he’s reacting with his hair out,” Souare said.
Coming into the 2025-26 season, Syracuse coaches refer to George as the engine to the car and note that he has a great mind and feel for the game. He worked diligently on his shooting in the summer sessions at SU. If Syracuse is to realize its NCAA Tournament goal, George will have figured to play a big part in the process. He and William Kyle are arguably the two players Syracuse can’t afford to lose.
George is enrolled at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse. Certainly, compensation is a big driver of where players end up. The opportunity at point guard and to get Syracuse back in March Madness also appealed to George. The relationships the staff and players built with him, the community and proximity to home all played a factor in George deciding on Syracuse. After missing on its preferred point guard target a season ago Syracuse learned some hard lessons. This time around they knew George was a guy they couldn’t miss on.
“He was a guy that going into the offseason you didn’t expect him to be available in the portal. When you get a chance to get a guy like that that obviously led the ACC in assists and is a double-digit scorer, (you get him),” Autry said. “He was a guy that we really wanted to get.”
Traditionally Syracuse has been at its best with strong guard tandems. Starling and George (along with Freeman) will attempt to lead this team back to prominence. It starts this week from Las Vegas in the Player’s Era Festival where the Orange will get a taste of whether it still needs more time or whether this program is ready to compete at the highest level again.
“You can’t ask for a better backcourt mate. He makes the game easy. It’s fun. I’m looking forward to what the season has for us,” Starling said.
