Newly minted Syracuse basketball head coach Gerry McNamara made his first public comments since accepting the lead job at his alma mater.
McNamara made an appearance Wednesday on ESPN Radio Syracuse with Steve Infanti and Paulie Scibilia where he was asked about the whirlwind of his last few weeks of winning the MAAC Tournament, making an NCAA Tournament appeareance and going toe-to-toe with Duke before bowing out.
McNamara was asked about potential staff and roster additions at Syracuse as well as his
offensive philosophy.
McNamara will hire a General Manager at Syracuse and will fill out the roster with returning players, transfers and a freshman or two. That and more from that conversation below.
He’ll have one-on-one conversations with the 2025-26 Syracuse players today
“I’ll meet with these guys individually,” McNamara said. “I’ve obviously watched every game. I watched two programs this year, Siena and Syracuse because I love Syracuse. I’m never going to miss a game.”
McNamara said he’s done his due diligence and background work on last year’s Syracuse players and has a certain set of off-court standards for players to get on the court. He’ll go into those conversations prepared.
“I have my thoughts on these guys. They’re going to hear that in person, privately. And we’ll kind of make some determinations from there,” McNamara said. “I’m really looking forward to a lot of these conversations. I feel like I have a better view of kind of what went on behind the scenes and I always had my own view on what happened on the court.”
Those conversations, he said, will be a collaborative effort.
“I’ll have a much better feel in terms of retention and the direction we’re going with current guys after tomorrow,” McNamara said.
The 2026-26 Syracuse roster will include returnees, transfers and freshmen
“I think it’ll be a combination,” McNamara said of how he’ll fill out his roster. We’ll have some guys coming in but it’s gotta be a combination of piecing the thing together in terms of role, responsibility, in terms of fit. Making sure we get enough of everything in terms of guard play, ability to shoot but still have length and athleticism defensively.”
Keep in mind that men’s basketball scholarship limits expanded to 15 last season, so there’s plenty of room for McNamara to fill out a full roster should he so choose.
“I anticipate it’s going to be a combination of both a freshmen or two, obviously some transfers in and obviously hit the transfer portal.”
A hire will be made for the General Manager position
General Manager positions in college sports have become popular in recent years as athletic departments make hires to help with talent acquisition, NIL and the transfer portal. Unlike professional sports, the General Manager in college athletics reports to the head coach.
“The GM position is absolutely going to be filled,” McNamara said. “There’s conversations being had and we’re going to get the right pieces in here.”
McNamara elaborated on what he expects from someone in that position, keying in on relationships.
“That guy has to have incredible relationships with a lot of different people,” McNamara said. “I’m a believer in that position needs to have relationships at the grassroots level as well. Not just agents. … I like guys that have had experience either in recruiting or covering recruiting, knowing a lot of these kids, a lot of the availability of them, their people, their families. All of that stuff plays a factor in the job they’re able to do.”
If Orange alumni Arinze Onuaku and Ryan Blackwell will follow him from Siena to Syracuse
“The staff you’ll see it in the next few days being rolled out,” McNamara said. “We’ll add some new pieces and new faces and get some really top level coaches and recruiters in here and there will be some familiarity as well.”
McNamara went on to describe what he thinks is important when constructing a staff and what values are important to him.
“The big thing with me is trust and loyalty and you still have to have the ability to relate to players and coach them and develop them,” McNamara said. “Through all that when we step across those lines, are we still people and treating them the right way? I think that’s why we’ve gotten the most out of our kids here [Siena]. … There’s a true relationship of care. It’s important to me. I’m a father. I want these kids to have a great experience and the guys that I bring have to mirror what I believe.”
Sounds a lot like Ryan Blackwell.
Why he believes he can turn things around at Syracuse
“I’m never going to shy away from an opportunity to compete,” McNamara said. “This one hits a little bit different, I think you guys know that because Syracuse has been my life. I left emotional. I thought I’d never see the place again. I’m not coming back emotionally this time. I’m coming back with a job to do.”
“That’s my intent, to come back more confident. Because I just did it,” McNamara said. “(I) come back with the intent of getting it back on the map because I know I can do it. And I’m more confident in it because I’ve got people around me that have the same intentions. They’ve got the same drive, the same fight. This is by no means a one-man effort. This is a collective effort and I’ve got the right people.”
Offensive philosophy
McNamara noted his Siena team ranked No. 1 in KenPom offensive efficiency in the MAAC this past season. He acknowledged that his team didn’t shoot well from the three but took care of the basketball. He expanded upon the positionlessness of modern basketball and how players today have to have multiple skillsets.
“When things break down, the modern way of playing is you can’t always just kind of set the pick-and-roll,” McNamara said. “You’ve either got to open a double gap, you’ve got to work through the big, There’s zoom action, there’s 45.”
Here’s an example of Siena running zoom earlier this year:
Too many times in the last five-plus Syracuse basketball seasons the attack broke down and devolved into isolation offense. It became predictable and easy to guard. It’s not uncharacteristic in college basketball for defenses to stop the first or second action. It’s just that modern offenses are much more sophisticated with multiple actions and multiple reads off those actions, in a way McNamara described at a much higher-level.
“There’s a lot of different breakdown in terms of conceptually how you want to play late,” McNamara said. “Everyone’s got an initial action. … Once you get under that 10 second mark you’ve got to have people that are releases, you’ve got to have people that are attackers and you gotta have people that are drillers. So if you’re opening up double gaps, you got guys that you can kick to if they help or over help. You got guys that you can release to you that you can have a four or five man that’s good in isolation or post that you can kind of release to.”
Think of a gap as open space on the court for offensive players to exploit — only a single gap makes it easier for off-ball defenders to play help defense as opposed to a double gap. Double gaps are usually created in four- or five-out offense — with shooters in one or both corners — which takes the opposing center away from the rim. Everyone runs horns or Spain action now but a lot of coaches who run modern offenses create double gaps with flare or ghost screens or emptying out a particular side of the court.
Here’s a visual example of Duke emptying the side and getting a dunk for… Maliq Brown.
Look at all that space on that left third of the court that Brown and Cam Boozer have to play with. Help can’t possibly come from ball side.
“We’re going to have good players in those positions,” McNamara said. “Hopefully we wont get too late in clock where we’re taking bad shots but when we get in those situations hopefully we execute the way we did here late in games.”
McNamara just gave the type of talk Syracuse fans have been clamoring for. We’re far away from seeing how that looks in practice, but it sounds like McNamara has some modern ideas beyond just running horns sets and 1-5 ball screens to find an exploitable matchup and go one-on-one.
This was a family decision
From the outside looking in, it might seem that the decision to take the Syracuse job was an easy one to make for McNamara. As is often the case in these situations, however, there are myriad factors and life considerations beyond just basketball.
McNamara expressed how much he loved his time at Siena and admitted it wasn’t an easy decision to leave.
“When I got the job offer at Syracuse I said to my wife, ‘We’re going to sit the kids down and it’s going to be their decision. If they decide they want to stay here, we will stay here. And if they decide they want to go home, we’ll go home.”
Syracuse is the birthplace of McNamara’s four children, a place they consider home.
“Obviously they made the decision to come home because they were pretty excited about it,” McNamara said. “I was secretly hoping they decided to come home because I wanted to as well. But I’ve got a family to think about and their happiness is going to be the first thing that I worry about above anything.
“It’s almost a fairytale that I get to kind of take them home now and go do it at a place that all of us love. This isn’t just a place that I love. This is a place that my wife has raised her children with me. … We get to do it all together. I can’t even tell you how incredible that is for us as parents.”
Syracuse will host a “welcome back” event for McNamara on Monday from Miron Victory Court adjacent the JMA Wireless Dome. The event begins at 4 p.m. and includes an introductory press conference. The event will be ticketed and the first 1,000 fans will receive commemorative orange t-shirts.
McNamara is back, and so too are the orange t-shirts.
