​The Gerry McNamara era will officially begin on Monday, November 2, inside the JMA Wireless Dome. Syracuse men’s basketball is set to open the regular season with a game against the University of New Haven, as announced by the program on Thursday. The Chargers will be making their second appearance at the Division I level, and they did not face Syracuse in the past. Last season, New Haven posted a 14-17 record with a 9-9 mark in NEC play under head coach Ted Hotaling, who is in his 15th year at the helm.
Syracuse currently has nine reported non-conference games on the schedule, with five dates officially announced. The season opener will once again kick off on the first day of the college basketball season—the first Monday in November for the past five years. After the opener, the Orange will host another Connecticut-based NEC program, Central Connecticut, on Thursday, November 5, before heading to Indianapolis to take on Indiana at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Monday, November 9.
The Orange’s ACC/SEC Challenge matchup against Oklahoma, scheduled in Norman, will occur on December 1, while a trip to Boston to face Providence is set for December 19. Other announced non-conference games include matchups against Lafayette on November 21 and UAlbany at the Dome. Syracuse has also lined up games against Rutgers at Barclays Center and St. John’s at Madison Square Garden, though exact dates for those contests have yet to be determined. With these announcements, five non-conference games remain to be finalized, and those additions are anticipated to include Colgate and Cornell, as previously reported.
In addition to the regular-season slate, Syracuse will play three exhibition games. The Orange will meet UConn at Mohegan Sun on October 13 and are also expected to face Siena in Albany and Niagara in Buffalo on October 24. The start of McNamara’s tenure will echo a recent Syracuse pattern, as he becomes the second consecutive Syracuse head coach to begin his tenure with a home game against a university with the initials “UNH.” In fact, SU defeated New Hampshire 83-72 in Adrian Autry’s first game on November 6, 2023, a trend that adds an extra layer of redundancy and intrigue to the early schedule.