Syracuse Looks to the Past and Future With Hire of Orange Legend Gerry McNamara After Successful Siena Run

Gerry McNamara secured his place as a Syracuse legend in 2006, when he played through injury to put together one of the great runs in Big East tournament history. The sharpshooting guard carried the Orange to dramatic wins over Cincinnati, UConn, Georgetown and Pittsburgh in successive days to capture a stunning Big East title and clinch an automatic NCAA men’s tournament bid.

Two decades later, the Syracuse program desperately needs someone to carry them back to the Big Dance, and it turns to the man who did so in 2006, three years after he scored 18 points to help deliver the Orange their first national championship.

McNamara, fresh off of a run to the NCAA tournament as the head coach of 16-seed Siena—and a near upset of Duke in which Blue Devils coach Jon Scheyer admitted he was outcoached—is finalizing a deal to return to the program where he starred for four years and coached as an assistant for 14 seasons, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports.

He does so after an impressive turnaround in the MAAC. The Saints had not participated in March Madness since 2010, and were just 4–28 the year before McNamara’s arrival. After a 10-win improvement in 2024–25, McNamara’s first year as a head coach, he led Siena to a 23–12 mark in ’25–26, winning the MAAC despite entering the postseason with a roster depleted by injuries and eligibility issues.

Now he inherits an Orange program in flux, coming off of back-to-back losing seasons under Adrian Autry, another former Syracuse great and one of his fellow assistants on Jim Boeheim’s staff. Autry, who inherited the program from Boeheim in 2023, put together an encouraging first year as head coach, posting a 20–12 record, but missed the NCAA tournament. He went just 29–36 with a 13–25 ACC record over the last two seasons, finishing below .500 each year, and was fired after a quick exit from the conference tournament.

There are few more popular figures around the Orange program than McNamara, and at Siena this season he proved his coaching chops, albeit at a much lower level in the MAAC. The near upset of Duke may have done as much to bolster his résumé as the conference championship. His close connection to the outgoing staff—and the disappointing late-career Boeheim years—are a real concern in central New York. The program’s slide started well before Autry inherited the program, while McNamara was on the bench alongside him.

Boeheim failed to win 20 games in any of his last four seasons, with a surprise Sweet 16 run in 2021 bolstering a poor final stanza for a coach who virtually never posted fewer than 20 wins over the first 40 years of his career. Autry’s tenure felt like a continuation of a downward trend more than a much-needed reset.

Now McNamara must fill two roles at once: the legendary national champion and four-year starter at point guard who can excite fans and, just as importantly, high-paying boosters to build a competitive NIL-era roster. And the forward-looking young coach who can take the Syracuse program into the future, beyond the specter of the Boeheim era, in which he played such a big part as a player and assistant coach.

In the weeks before McNamara’s hire, Syracuse University named a new chancellor and hired a new athletic director, both of whom have stressed the importance of nailing this hire to lead college basketball’s seventh-winningest program. In McNamara, they are trying to strike the balance of looking to the past and future at the same time.

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