Gerry McNamara made his first media appearance since filling out most of the 2026-27 Syracuse Orange basketball roster. In a nearly 40-minute conversation with CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein, McNamara shared details on how he and his staff thought about roster construction as well as a potential non-conference game at Madison Square Garden.
With the Syracuse coaching and administrative staff in place and the roster mostly set, McNamara might finally be able to come up for air. That is if he’s not awake
at 2:30 am studying film from the Duke-Siena game.
“I’ll never get over it,” McNamara said of Siena’s loss to Duke.
McNamara shared he was having trouble sleeping last week and tuned in to the near upset of the No. 1 overall seed in the 2026 NCAA Tournament
“Just to torture myself in the middle of the night for no reason,” McNamara quipped.
In a candid interview, McNamara shared insights on what coaching is like as the head man, how his relationship with Jim Boeheim has evolved and he gave nuggets of information on where Syracuse is at with its roster. He shared how the limitations of coaching and on-court influence (in comparison to a player) can be “torture” and a “helpless feeling.”
“I’ve heard Danny Hurley say he doesn’t even enjoy the wins anymore. He’s just relieved,” McNamara said, “and that’s how you get. You feel like you prepare a certain way, you should expect the result.”
McNamara said his relationship with Boeheim has evolved from coach-player to peer-to-peer and now into a bond of deep friendship. He’ll bring Boeheim’s original desk from Manley Field House into his office in the Melo Center.
That, and more of that conversation chock-full of interesting tidbits below.
On the experience of head coaching outside of Syracuse
“It was important for me. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. It really was. I think for my own personal development, I felt like I needed to take my opportunity. And I was really lucky. It was a great job.”
Proved to himself he can do it, but now try to turn Syracuse around with a build from scratch.
“For me it was so crucial to branch off — not under anyone else’s blanket — and just go do it on my own,” McNamara said.
Similar rebuild to Siena to Syracuse.
“Obviously it’s going to be a multi-year build,” McNamara said. “If you look at who we brought in so far this year, multiple guys have multiple years left.”
The Five for Five rule
The NCAA is proposing a rule in which all division one athletes get five years to complete five seasons of eligibility — with the clock starting after high school graduation or turning 19 — with the intent to eliminate waivers for injuries and the like.
“I hope it doesn’t pass this year,” McNamara said. “For obvious reasons.”
McNamara later alluded to how Syracuse has used most of its NIL resources for the upcoming year.
“There could be hundreds more of elite players that they’re just going to throw on the market here in the next few weeks out of nowhere,” McNamara said. “So people like us who filled a roster and kind of used a lot of your NIL money, there’s a lot of fluctuation that’s going to happen.”
Syracuse at the Mecca
Syracuse last played at Madison Square Garden in December of 2021 when it lost to Villanova. Once an annual occurrence for Syracuse fans, the Orange have played elsewhere in recent years with non-conference scheduling becoming more condensed and the Orange brand lacking staying power.
With Kiyan Anthony in tow, McNamara made it known he wants Syracuse to return to the big stage.
“You mention the Garden. That’s somewhere I want to play. I want to play there almost every year,” McNamara said. “We’ve been to Barclays a lot but the Garden to me is important.”
With Syracuse bowing out of the Player’s Era Tournament in Las Vegas, the Orange have three open slots to fill in its non-conference schedule. Two of those have been penciled in with Syracuse playing Indiana at Gainbridge Fieldhouse and Providence at TD Garden.
“We’re working on one or two more games that I think are going to be really appealing to our fan base,” McNamara said. “I want this team to be tested. I want them to play in certain venues.”
When asked directly if one of those venues was potentially Madison Square Garden, McNamara didn’t balk.
“That’s fair,” McNamara said. “I’ve flat out said I want to be in the Garden.”
Will McNamara play 2-3 zone at Syracuse?
“Not primarily,” McNamara said. “At Siena we used it I felt like if we needed to take control of the game.”
McNamara said at Siena he used it in a way that was also matchup dependent.
“Analytically we used it at two different games this year against a team that didn’t really shoot it well,” McNamara said.
If Syracuse were to play 2-3 zone, a roster full of guys 6-foot-5 and taller with long wingspans would theoretically be an adept zone-playing team.
“I’ll tell you what: if you look at our roster it’s going to be pretty good in terms of the length and athleticism. I think we’ll have a pretty good group to play it,” McNamara said.
The strategy behind putting together the Syracuse roster
McNamara has heard the critique surrounding the Syracuse roster that was put together without of Power Four transfer. He said the roster construction was more about fit and finding guys who can play together.
“It’s my job to put together (a roster). And not a roster that’s going to please everybody on the outside, or the twitter world, you want the big names — I need guys that are going to fight for the product and play together,” McNamara said.
McNamara said he wanted a roster that was strategically built to compete against everybody. He thinks the versatility of the one through three positions (and can defend multiple positions) is there and the four and five positions are complimentary.
“We’ve got guys that can play multiple positions,” McNamara said. “You’ve got guys that can defend multiple positions. I wanted two-way guys. I felt like that was the difference for us at Siena.
“I wanted more of a five-out where we can maneuver — at Siena I had Riley Mulvey — where we can work through the five in the modern day style. But you could also have the guy that can bang down low.”
McNamara mentioned one Syracuse returnee as key for the 2026-27 squad to reach its potential.
“I think a guy like Sadiq White, having him back his emergence of how far he goes and what he can take his game to this year is going to be a big factor in what ceiling we can reach.”
Syracuse still has two roster spots open for 2026-27.
“We’re not fully done yet,” McNamara said. “We’ve got a couple pieces to add here.”
