It’s not yet a done deal, but after USF head coach Bryan Hodgson ditched Tampa for Providence on Sunday, Hall of Fame sportswriter Dick Weiss is reporting that Syracuse legend and current Siena head coach Gerry McNamara is “expected to become the Orange’s next basketball coach.”
In his second season as a head coach, the 42-year-old former national champion point guard led the Saints to the NCAA Tournament, and in the first round on Thursday, he gave the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed a scare. With a hot start, Siena became the first 16 seed in NCAA Tournament history to hold a double-digit halftime lead over a No. 1 seed, but the undermanned Saints ran out of steam in a 71-65 loss to Jon Scheyer’s Duke Blue Devils.
here's a fitting ending to a feel good story. former Syracuse star, Siena coach Gerry MacNamara is expected to become the Orange's next basketball coach.
— Dick Weiss (@HoopsWeiss) March 22, 2026
With McNamara generating major buzz with his team's tournament performance, hiring the program legend is the obvious move. That doesn't mean it's the right one.
Dick Weiss reports that Gerry McNamara is expected to become Syracuse’s next head coach
When Jim Boeheim’s legendary run in Western New York finally came to an end, Adrian Autry, another former Orange, was elevated from the role of associate head coach to take over the program. However, after a 20-win season in Year 1, Autry failed to get the program back to the NCAA Tournament and was fired at the end of the team’s 15-17 campaign in 2025-26.
With Autry’s tenure extending Syracuse’s March Madness drought to five years, many Syracuse fans were, and still are, ready for an external hire. However, the Orange quickly fell out of favor with Hodgson, who instead chose the Friars, and top mid-major candidate Josh Schertz, who led Saint Louis to a dominant first-round win over Georgia on Thursday, signed a multi-year extension with the Billikens.
While McNamara is not necessarily an internal hire, like Autry, he spent the overwhelming majority of his coaching career in Syracuse. He joined Boeheim’s staff in 2009 as a graduate manager, then served as an assistant from 2011-2023 before he was elevated to associate head coach under Autry in 2023-24.
Unlike Autry, if McNamara does take over the program as Weiss is indicating, he will do so with head coaching experience on his resume, which is valuable. His success, though, will ultimately be determined by how well the program adapts to the new era of the sport with NIL, revenue-sharing, and the Transfer Portal, which is not a huge part of leading a MEAC program like Siena.
As a Syracuse legend, a McNamara hire will invigorate much of the fanbase, but there’s a chance it’s more of the same when the Orange desperately need a change.