One glaring issue for Syracuse basketball’s current roster

Gerry McNamara and his staff have been busy in the past few weeks since the former Syracuse point guard was announced as the new men’s basketball coach. All five starters from this past season departed either via graduation or the transfer portal. McNamara has added eight players to the roster already, five via the transfer portal and three more from high school recruiting.

While it is going to take some time for McNamara to find his footing and rebuild this program, the early returns in roster building are a bit worrying. While there are still a handful of higher-profile transfers available, most of the movement appears to have already happened.

How does the talent stack up?

Based on who the Orange have brought in, this is who I would expect to start in 2026-27:
PG - Garwey Dual
SG - Gavin Doty
SF - Kiyan Anthony
PF - Sadiq White
C - Luke Wilson

Perhaps great coaching will bring the best out of that lineup, but it is hard to see this team being better than what we saw during Autry’s final season, which featured a much more talented roster.

Point guard is a glaring unknown at this stage. Dual is known for his gritty defense and averaged a solid 4.4 assists per game during his junior year at McNeese. However, he has never been a heavy minutes guy, averaging a career high 26.5 minutes per game this past season. He is not a reliable scorer either, notably struggling to score from behind the arc.

McNamara does have four-star recruit Ryan Moesch arriving from the high school ranks, but it is hard to see him stepping into the starting role as a freshman. Ideally, he will get some minutes off the bench to provide some ball handling and floor spacing while he adds to his frame a bit to handle playing in the ACC.

Where is the shooting?

This team also desperately lacks proven shooters. Gavin Doty and Dual are both sub-32 percent career 3-point shooters. Aiden Tobiason saw his efficiency from beyond the arc dip from 41.2 percent as a freshman to 33.8 percent as a sophomore. Luke Wilson has not attempted a 3 as a college basketball player. Tasman Goodrick has attempted just one shot from 3-point range in his two seasons. Kiyan Anthony struggled mightily as a freshman, shooting just 25.1 percent from deep. Sadiq White shot at a better clip, but only made seven 3s the whole season.

Assuming Moesch sees some minutes, the freshman might be relied upon as the best 3-point shooter on the team. That is not a place you want to be. It feels a bit like McNamara is building a team ready to compete in the old Big East, not contend in the modern ACC. This team should unquestionably be improved on the defensive end, but that can only get you so far in college basketball today. The Orange ranked 252nd in the country in made 3s per game this past season. Siena was much worse, actually, ranking 349th, the fewest of any team in the tournament.

It’s not a prerequisite to being a good team, Arizona reached the Final Four despite ranking 338th in made 3s per game, but it sure makes it easier to contend when you can space the floor. The Wildcats were able to get that despite not taking many 3s because they were elite at finishing in the paint (13th in field goal percentage) and they were efficient when they did shoot from beyond the arc (38th in 3-point field goal percentage).

McNamara is banking on defense

All of this to say, McNamara is relying heavily on Syracuse being an elite defensive team.

The outlook for the whole season would change if McNamara were able to land five-star point guard Dylan Mingo, who recently decommitted from UNC. He plays at Long Island Lutheran, which is where Kiyan Anthony played his high school ball. However, his older brother, Kayden, transferred to Baylor, fueling speculation that Dylan would join him there.

The offseason is not over yet, but at this point, fans will have to trust McNamara is assembling a team that, as a whole, is greater than the sum of its parts.

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