Syracuse basketball adds another non-conference game to its upcoming season schedule

The Orange will host Patriot League member Lafayette in the second known Dome game for the upcoming season.

Dec 17, 2025; Syracuse, New York, USA; General view of the JMA Wireless Dome prior to the game between the Mercyhurst Lakers and the Syracuse Orange. Mandatory Credit: Rich Barnes-Imagn Images | Rich Barnes-Imagn Images

The upcoming 2026-27 season is the first in which the NCAA upped the maximum number of regular season games to 32.

For Syracuse and the other 17 ACC teams, that means scheduling 14 non-conference games to pair with the 18 league match-ups, before the ACC Tournament is contested next season with a one-year move to Greensboro.

Through various reporting heading into this week, we have now been able to piece together the three Orange exhibition games and seven regular season contests.

The latest game announcement is Wednesday's report from Bracketeer.org that SU will face Lafayette in the Dome on Saturday, November 21. It is now the second known home game.

The juggling act of balancing the non-ACC portion of the schedule

The exhibition games against defending national runners-up Connecticut, and Div. I schools Siena and Niagara, provides a nice mix of opponent quality suitable for pre-season fine-tuning and learning,

The 14 regular season games have to combine tough games against (likely) Quad 1 oppponents to improve both the metrics heading into ACC play, and providing enough games that will make it easier to predict of total win total before those league contests.

Currently, of the 'Cuse's seven non-conference games, five are against Power Conference teams (Indiana Oklahoma, Providence, Rutgers, and St. John's), and now the Lafayette game joins the reported Albany matchup as two games that will feature mid-size (and smaller) programs on the slate.

Last season, Lafayette finished with an 11-21 record under fifth-year head coach Mike McGarvey.

There are still seven non-conference games to be announced over the next six-to-eight weeks, and Gerry McNamara has previously hinted that upstate schools and longtime SU rivals Colgate and Cornell are teams he wants to see his team face in the Dome.

Lafayette was a Syracuse opponent in the school's first NCAA Tournament appearance

Syracuse is 9-0 all-time against the Leopards, the last matchup coming early in the 2021 season, while the first meeting between the schools was in the 1957 NCAA Tournament East Region, a game contested at The Palestra in Philadelphia.

It is also a contest that produced a little bit of fun SU hoops trivia that takes us all the way to the present head coach.

SU (18-6) played its only NCAA game at Madison Square Garden to begin the '57 tourney, defeating Connecticut 82-76 in the quarterfinals, and advanced to face fellow Eastern Independent Lafayette which with a 22-4 record had a bye to the region semifinals.

The Orangemen led by two at halftime, before the Leopards rallied to take a 57-53 early second half lead. It was then that SU forward Gary Clark took over with an offensive burst. Shooting 13-for-20 from the field, and 8-of-10 from the foul line, Clark finished with 34-points and helped lead SU to a 75-71 hard-fought win.

At the time, Clark's heroics also set the Syracuse record for the most points scored by a player in an NCAA Tournament game. It is a record that lasted 47 years until it was broken by G-Mac's dazzling 43 point explosion (including nine 3-pointers), to single-handedly help the Orange escape BYU 80-75 in the first round of the 2004 tourney in Denver.

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