Adrian Autry touts bigger, versatile Syracuse team

Syracuse men’s basketball head coach Adrian Autry said he was excited at the start of his first home press conference of the season.

Coming off a 2024-25 season that ended with a bottom-five finish in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Orange returned two of its best players in J.J. Starling and Donnie Freeman. Autry said that on a personal level, it “meant a lot” for the duo to return.

While building their roster around the duo, the Orange prioritized getting bigger and being more versatile. Now, with the regular season set to begin in a few weeks, SU’s reconstructed look includes six transfer portal additions and five freshmen.

Entering his third season at the helm, Autry spoke with the media Wednesday.

Here are three takeaways from Autry’s press conference at media day.

Retaining Starling and Freeman

After last season, Autry sat down with Starling and Freeman and talked about their respective futures. Both were committed to returning to the program and proved to be critical in building SU’s roster as its only returning contributors, Autry said.

“Once we got them back in, they were part of the process of recruiting,” Autry said. “Once we went into the portal, they were very much involved in it.”

Autry knows that many players have opportunities at the end of the year to play elsewhere, and they stuck with the Orange.

“That means that we’re all on the same bus, moving in the same direction, and they believe in us,” Autry said.

Starling was named to the All-ACC Preseason Second Team and Freeman is among college basketball insider Jon Rothstein’s 15 players set to become a star. Autry said the duo, which he describes as “two big-time players” grew as leaders this offseason too, due to their involvement in SU’s roster reconstruction.

Aiming for March Madness

Syracuse last made March Madness in 2021. Since then, the Orange have missed the last four tournaments and are coming off a 14-19 season, the worst during the stretch.

Autry made his expectations clear.

“I want to make the tournament every year,” Autry said.

“I'm not here just to be mediocre,” Autry said. “This place is where I grew up at, I raised my family here, so I know how much this program means to the community and my family. So every year, we want to compete.”

He expects to be held to SU director of athletics John Wildhack’s standard of playing meaningful games in March.

Last season, the Orange suffered multiple injuries, including ones to Starling and Freeman. Autry said the team needs to be healthy the whole year and he thinks added size will help to improve on last year.

“We went out and I think we've gotten bigger in our guards, we got bigger in our wings,” Autry said.

Improving on the Defensive End

Syracuse allowed the second most points per game in the ACC last season. Entering this offseason, SU prioritized defending its own basket.

Autry leaned on his returners to get the Orange focused on committing to its defense.

“When you return your two leaders in J.J. and Donnie, they understand that we got to improve on that end, the buy-in was there,” Autry said.

In the transfer portal, SU added length in 6-foot-9 UCLA transfer William Kyle III and 6-foot-9 Georgia Tech transfer Ibrahim Souare. Autry sees its revamped roster, which offers more athleticism and speed too, improving its defense.

“Our perimeter guys have been through some wars,” Autry said. “They understand how important that is, and that's the initial part of our defense.”