Indiana men’s basketball sees its first high major opponent of the 2026-27 season, squaring off with Syracuse in Gainbridge Fieldhouse, an scenario KenPom dubs a “semi-home” game for the Hoosiers.
Indiana has not beat the Orange since Keith Smart’s jumper sealed Indiana’s last national championship in basketball. Syracuse has won six straight between the two, including upsetting the 2012-13 Hoosiers that was probably the Indiana best team since Bob Knight’s time.
While fans of both teams will remember
the intensity and stakes of those matchups, recent history has not been kind to either program. Adrian Autry coached for the first three seasons post-Boeheim, but was fired last spring after having just one winning record in those three years.
Like Indiana, this is a new group looking to prove itself early this season.
Here are 3 things to watch for in this game:
Gerry McNamara
Gerry McNamara played at Cuse under Jim Boeheim, had a brief but respectable stint in the NBA, and promptly returned to Syracuse to begin his coaching career. After two years as a graduate assistant, he was promoted to assistant coach, then associate head coach by Autry.
Rather than stick around for an associate head coach role, McNamara went to Sienna in 2024, where he got his first head coaching experience. His second year there, he won the MAAC Tournament, earning an NCAA Tournament berth that almost culminated in an upset over Duke. In two seasons, he went 30-37 there.
This is a guy who is very familiar with Syracuse basketball and its traditions, but not one with a ton of head coaching experience. Having come from Siena, he’s definitely not had access to the talent or resources he now has at his disposal.
Indiana should be able to take advantage of a guy who is still figuring things out both as a head coach and as a coach at this level. DeVries and a good chunk of his players have been there before and know what it takes to win.
Kiyan Anthony
I gotta say, in the five plus years I’ve been covering IU basketball, I don’t think I saw too many instances where the player with the team’s highest usage rate (per KenPom) was actually a bench player. This is the case with Kiyan Anthony.
Against inferior opponents this year, he’s averaging 15.5 points per game, hovering around 30% from deep. The son of Carmelo Anthony, he’s a very gifted athlete who, like his dad, has never seen a shot he didn’t like.
Gavin Doty, the team’s leading scorer, starts on the wing and his hitting 50% from three, making him another viable scoring threat. But when Anthony is on the floor, the ball is usually going to him and he’s probably not passing. Indiana needs to be aware of where he is at all times.
Indiana’s rotation
Against a more respectable opponent, we should start to get a better idea of how DeVries plans on using this roster. He’s seemingly got a winner of a sixth man in Bryce Lindsey, but beyond that, things are less clear.
I’m most interested in Trevor Manhertz, whose been playing as the backup wing, but also has a 6’9” frame that makes him look like an option for power forward. He certainty doesn’t have the muscle yet to spend too many minutes there, but he’s also been more of a threat from the perimeter, making him a good mismatch offensively.
So far this year, DeVries has used Trent Sisley, Aiden Sherrell, and Sam Alexis at the power forward spots, making minutes harder to come by there, but both Alexis and Sherrell have also played the center spot behind Samet Yigitoglu.
Tomorrow’s game should give us a better idea of what spots in the front court guys will occupy and for how long.
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