Syracuse's 2 best players had 'horrible years,' cost Adrian Autry his job - Jim Boeheim

Jim Boeheim is speaking out about the decision on Wednesday by SU leaders to fire Syracuse basketball's third-year head coach, Adrian Autry.

Discussing this news on ESPN2 on Wednesday, the legendary Hall of Famer Boeheim, who led the Orange program for 47 years, said a primary reason why Autry was let go is that the Orange's two best players in the 2025-26 season "had horrible years."

Boeheim didn't mention the players by name, although I'm assuming that he was referring to sophomore power forward Donnie Freeman and senior shooting guard J.J. Starling. While I respect Boeheim like it's nobody's business, assuming these are the two players he was referring to, to say they had "horrible" campaigns might be a bit of a stretch, in my humble opinion.

The 6-foot-9 Freeman, an honorable mention All-ACC performer, averaged 16.5 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.3 assists per contest while making 47.4 percent from the field, 30.2 percent from beyond the arc and 76.7 percent from the free-throw line. He missed nine encounters due to an injury.

Starling, a Central New York native who spent three seasons in the Syracuse basketball program, was awful toward the end of the 2025-26 stanza. Over the team's last four games, he scored a combined six points. For all of 2025-26, Starling averaged 10.9 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.4 assists per contest while connecting on 41.9 percent from the field, 28.9 percent from 3-point land and 54.8 percent from the charity stripe.

Jim Boeheim has thoughts about Adrian Autry being fired.

To be fair, Boeheim also added that when it comes down to it, "the head coach is responsible" for the team's overall performance. Boeheim noted that he thinks Autry, who was the Orange's associate head coach prior to Boeheim hanging up his whistle in March 2023, is "a good coach," but it was just a situation "where his best players just didn’t play the way they needed to play, and it cost him his job."

As he has done in the past, Boeheim cited what he believes is a lack of NIL funds at Syracuse basketball as compared to the rest of the Atlantic Coast Conference. He said that Syracuse, Boston College and Georgia Tech - three programs that all fired their head coaches in recent days - are among those with the least amount of NIL money in the conference.

Boeheim is clearly more plugged in than I am, however, to suggest that 'Cuse is near the bottom of the ACC in NIL funds isn't necessarily accurate. For one, SU Athletics has said that it would share with its athletes the maximum amount allowed by the NCAA in 2025-26, about $20.5 million, although we don't know exactly how much of that has gone to Syracuse men's basketball.

In terms of third-party NIL, I've asked SU Athletics about this over and over, with no specifics provided to me. What I have heard, though, is that in terms of total NIL dollars available to the Orange for its 2025-26 roster, the squad was relatively competitive in the ACC.