Syracuse men’s basketball: a different outlook on the Orange’s off-season moves

Four of the top-five Syracuse players in BPR are transfers: Dual, Doty, Aiden Tobiason (Temple), and Francis Folefac (Siena).

One potential bright spot is definitely the defensive potential of the roster, at least according to the numbers. Keep in mind: Syracuse’s defense has been porous this decade.

Using a different metric, KenPom, Syracuse has never finished higher than No. 77 in adjusted defensive efficiency. That happened in 2021, the last time the Orange earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament. It’s ADE over the last seven years from 2020 to this past season: 116th, 77th, 207th, 185th, 85th, 152nd and 95th.

Per EvanMiya, Syracuse finished No. 94 in its team defensive efficiency rating in 2025-26.

On the other side of the court, the offense is a bit more of a question mark. McNamara will be installing an offense of his own. Broadly speaking on the end of Adrian Autry’s tenure, there’s a case that the talent was there, but the execution was not.

For at least 2026-27, it might be a question of whether McNamara has enough scoring punch on the team. According to EvanMiya’s offensive BPR projections, the top three Syracuse players on offense are Doty, Tobiason and Dual. All have had decent to good success at the non-Power Five level, but for the Orange to do well, that incoming production will soon have to come against better opponents.

One last pair of numbers to point to from EvanMiya definitely highlight how much roster turnover there is heading into year one of the McNamara Era. The metric projects Syracuse to return just over 20% of its minutes from the 2025-26 team (mainly White Jr. and Kiyan Anthony), with a roster continuity percentage of 15%.

So far, seven players departed to the transfer portal. Just three are back from last year’s roster (counting Calvin Russell III). During the offseason, Syracuse brought in a handful of transfers, plus added a four-star guard recruit along with two prospects from across the Atlantic.

With the dust potentially settling soon on the offseason, coach McNamara will be aiming to bring his new-look Orange back to the Big Dance for the first time in over half a decade.