Syracuse’s coaching search has a major red flag that should terrify Orange fans

When Syracuse finally moved on from Jim Boeheim after his 47 seasons at the helm in Western New York, they quickly handed the job to his associate head coach and Syracuse alum, Adrian Autry. Now, after three seasons without reaching the NCAA Tournament, Autry is gone, and the program will undergo its first true coaching search in 50 years. 

That search has reportedly already identified a few top candidates, including Syracuse legend and another former Boeheim assistant, Gerry McNamara, along with up-and-coming coaches with no ties to the program. Whichever way Syracuse goes, The Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman thinks Autry’s replacement will be doomed to disappoint a fanbase that is starved for a return to relevance. 

Syracuse is a historic program with championship expectations, but as Goodman explained on Wednesday after Autry was let go, many of the top names could be scared off because Syracuse’s financial investment doesn’t match those expectations, which is a recipe for disaster. 

“Does (Saint Louis head coach Josh Schertz), want this job. Is it good enough for him?” Goodman posed to Rob Dauster. “The number, obviously, is as important as anything, right. The number being, how much money are you going to have for next year?” 

Goodman, who has covered the sport closely for years, then stated it even more bluntly: “Their resources have to improve, and I’m not sure they’re going to improve enough to get a Josh Schertz or even a Bryan Hodgson.” 

Jeff Goodman gives a damning assessment of the state of Syracuse basketball

In his final press conference after Tuesday’s loss to SMU, Autry opined about the program’s lack of resources to compete in the NIL era. Autry wasn’t up to the task of outperforming those limitations, but if Syracuse wants to attract the top coaches on the market, like a Schertz, who had Saint Louis ranked for much of the season, or Hodgson, who led USF to the top of the American, it needs to start spending at the level of the ACC top contenders like Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, and Virginia. 

There is a lot that went wrong in the Autry era, and not all of it is tied to the lack of money, but it’s hard to extricate the results from that reality. The top mid-major coaches have the luxury to be picky on the job market, and if Syracuse isn’t spending like a serious contender, those coaches won’t treat it as a top job. 

As Syracuse moves further away from the Boeheim era and extends its NCAA Tournament absence to five years this season, fans have to face the terrifying possibility of the program fading into college basketball obscurity if they get this hire wrong.