Syracuse Men\u2019s Basketball is just under a month away from opening its 2025-26 season. Down in Charlotte at the ACC Tipoff event Tuesday, SU fans got a chance to hear from Head Coach Adrian Autry on what can be expected from Syracuse going into this season. Here\u2019s three takeaways from Coach Autry\u2019s first press conference of the season.<\/p>\n
Donnie Freeman\u2019s recovery was a success<\/p>\n
Sophomore Donnie Freeman\u2019s arrival to the 315 last year was one of the most anticipated in SU hoops history. The former five-star showed plenty of flashes his freshman year, averaging 13.4 points and 7.9 rebounds. However, that came in just 14 games played, with Freeman\u2019s season ending due to a lower body injury. Despite the setback, Coach Autry said today that the sophomore\u2019s recovery was a success.<\/p>\n
\u201cDonnie had a really good summer,\u201d Coach Autry said. \u201c(He) came back and changed his body work really, really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Freeman can stay healthy, he can lead a solid frontcourt that includes fellow five-star Sadiq White, UCLA transfer William Kyle, and Georgia Tech transfer Ibrahim Souare.<\/p>\n
Donnie Freeman and JJ Starling played a hand in shaping SU\u2019s roster<\/p>\n
It shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise that the two players representing the Orange at the ACC Tipoff were JJ Starling and Donnie Freeman. The senior and the sophomore were the main two returners on an SU squad with 11 new additions. However, Coach Autry revealed today that Starling and Freeman helped a lot with building \u2018Cuse\u2019s current roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were a part of the meetings, they were a part of the recruiting, they were a part of the visits,\u201d Autry said. \u201cI think that helped us a lot. I think that helped us a step forward, them being able to be a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, Syracuse\u2019s haul of recruits and transfers was bountiful. Guard Kiyan Anthony and forward Sadiq White highlight the 2025-26 freshman class, while Georgia Tech transfer Naithan George and Oregon State transfer Nate Kingz headline SU\u2019s program-record crop of six additions from the portal.<\/p>\n
SU\u2019s roster features more versatility than last season<\/p>\n
When Coach Autry was building his roster for his third year at the helm for SU, there was one word that was paramount: versatility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just wanted to get bigger and quicker overall as a program,\u201d Autry said. \u201cIncrease our athleticism and our positional size.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Red wasn\u2019t lying. A majority of SU\u2019s guards stand at 6\u20193\u201d- 6\u20195\u201d, while the wings and frontcourt can top out at 6\u20198\u201d- 6\u20199\u201d. Despite the Orange losing size from players last year such as centers Eddie Lampkin Jr. and Naheem McLeod, the compact builds of players like Kyle and Souare can allow the Orange to run more in the court, a style that Coach Autry has tried to implement throughout his time at SU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Syracuse Men\u2019s Basketball is just under a month away from opening its 2025-26 season. Down in Charlotte at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[119559,402,119561,119560,30497,398,400,401,4694,119562,99,11823,119563],"class_list":["post-208624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-acc-media-day","tag-basketball","tag-coach-autry","tag-donnie-freeman","tag-mens-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-roster","tag-sadiq-white","tag-sports","tag-syracuse","tag-versatility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}