Adrian Autry, just like everyone in the Syracuse fanbase and remotely tapped into the college basketball sphere, knew the writing was on the wall heading into the ACC Tournament. So, it was no surprise that after the Orange made a merciful first-round exit on Tuesday, falling to SMU 86-69, Autry was let go on Wednesday morning.
Through three seasons leading his alma mater, Jim Boeheim’s longtime assistant went 49-48 overall and failed to reach the NCAA Tournament. That’s an unacceptable run for the historic program, and in what he had to know was his final postgame press conference, Autry was candid about what went wrong.
“The landscape of college athletics has changed, and to be where we want our standard to be, a lot of those things change,” Autry told the reporters assembled in Charlotte. “I think that was the struggle for me to try to adapt to that. I think you’ve got to have it. To be able to compete nationally, it’s different now.
“To be able to be relevant, to be Top 25 and compete for tournaments and be in championships, the investment has to be there from top to bottom. There’s no way around it.”
Adrian Autry wasn’t good enough at Syracuse, but neither was the investment
Autry never put together a talented enough roster to compete in the ACC, and even this year, with Donnie Freeman blossoming into a star, he didn’t do enough with the talent that he had. Still, it’s clear from those comments and his roster construction over the past three years that Autry was hamstrung by the lack of financial investment from the program and inadequate fundraising efforts.
The excuse of blaming NIL rings a bit more hollow now in the era of revenue-sharing, especially at a basketball school that is likely to spend a larger portion of its $21 million share on the hardwood than most other programs in the conference. That is, if Syracuse is spending the full share at all.
Then, to compete with Duke and North Carolina at the top of the conference, programs need to spend additional money on top of the revenue-sharing for direct pay-to-play, and the first priority for whoever replaces Autry is to build up the warchest of resources necessary to compete for elite talent on the recruiting trail and in the Transfer Portal.