A new era of Gerry McNamara basketball tipped off Monday night at Syracuse in front of 23,283 fans at JMA Wireless Dome — the largest home opener crowd there in 10 seasons.

It was a night of mixed emotions and heavy hearts for the McNamara family.

The Orange scored the game’s first 18 points and went on to give the Scranton native a victory in his debut as head coach at his alma mater just two days after the death of his father, Gerard, at the age of 78 following a battle with cancer.

Kiyan Anthony scored a team-high 17 points off the bench, and Gavin Doty and Sadiq White Jr. posted double-doubles as Syracuse defeated New Haven, 74-58.

“It’s been a tough week for our family, and the first person that would be here tonight would be my father,” McNamara said in his postgame press conference. “Everybody that knows me knows that. I’m hurting a little bit this week. Obviously I’m going to be hurting for a little while, pretty much forever, so I just appreciate all the people that have reached out to us.

“It will be a tough night tonight when I reflect on today not having him here with me for the first time.”

McNamara said there were several moments where he felt his emotions bubble up, but that he did his best to keep them from showing.

“The national anthem got me a little bit thinking of him and his service,” McNamara said about his father, nicknamed “Chiz” who served in the Marines and was a Vietnam veteran. “I’ve tried to compartmentalize it a little bit. It’s been when I’ve been around the team that I can just focus on the team. That’s kind of been the needed distraction. Having my mom here tonight, I think maybe it was a little bit of a distraction for her as well.”

The night began with a video tribute that detailed McNamara’s path from Bishop Hannan High School in Scranton to Syracuse, where he attained legend status in his four years playing for the Orange, helping lead them to a national championship as a freshman and going on to score more than 2,000 points in his career.

Three years after graduation, McNamara became a graduate assistant for the Orange under Jim Boeheim and was promoted to full-time assistant coach in 2011, a position he would hold until leaving in 2024 to become head coach at Siena.

In his first game back at Syracuse, the Orange held New Haven — a program in just its second season at the Division I level — scoreless for the first eight minutes on the way to a 39-17 halftime lead.

And while the Chargers didn’t get much closer in the second half, McNamara was not exactly thrilled with his team’s performance over the final 20 minutes as New Haven outscored the Orange, 41-35, shooting 59.3% from the floor on 16 for 27 field goal attempts.

“He’d be as disgusted as am I right now,” McNamara said on the ACC Network Extra broadcast after the game, when asked how his father would have summed up the game.

“My dad was a hoop junkie just like me,” McNamara said. “I’d be calling him tonight if that were the case, and we’d be venting together.”