Adrian Autry is out after just three seasons as the head coach of Syracuse, a source told CBS Sports.
The Orange’s season finished Tuesday evening with an 86-69 loss to SMU in the ACC Tournament; Syracuse was a 14-seed in the league bracket. Jim Boeheim’s successor leaves with a 49-48 record and no NCAA Tournament showings.
Autry, 54, was given the job following the retirement of Boeheim in 2023. He served as an assistant with the Orange from 2011-23 and got off to a solid start with a 20-12 Year 1. Last season SU went 14-19, and this year wasn’t much better (15-17). Complicating matters, Kiyan Anthony, son of program legend Carmelo, was an inconsistent role player off the bench, which contributed to the overall turbulence in the past five months.
Autry’s firing after a failed three-year succession plan puts Syracuse in an interesting and unwanted position.
Boeheim’s run had highs and lows, but Syracuse was generally regarded as a top-25 program for the vast majority of his 46 seasons as coach. But the Orange had a downturn in Boeheim’s final four seasons, which bled over into the Autry years. This is no longer considered a top-20 job in the sport and hasn’t operated as a top 25-level team since the mid-2010s. Syracuse last made the Sweet 16 in 2018, as a No. 11 seed, and its most recent quality NCAA Tournament seed was 2014 when it earned a 3-seed after going 28-6.
Autry’s exodus was accelerated all the more by the departure of Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack, who spent a decade at the school and was responsible for clearing the succession plan from Boeheim. Syracuse has not yet hired a new athletics director.
Wildhack last year opted to give Autry one more season to turn the ship around, saying “We need to fix it now for next year, and we need to get this program back to the standard and the performance level that we expect as a program, that [Autry] expects, the staff expects and our fans expect,” Wildhack told Cuse Sports Talk last spring.
Wildhack in 2025 said the Orange would be full participants in the expected revenue-sharing model created by the House v. NCAA settlement. As such, the athletic department has roughly $20.5 million to disperse between its programs. Wildhack never shared what percentage of that money he doled out toward men’s basketball but did highlight the importance of the program continuing to foster third-party NIL opportunities, in addition to revenue-sharing.
Syracuse’s 2025 signing class ranked No. 10 nationally, per 247Sports, including a pair of top-40 prospects in Sadiq White Jr. and Anthony. Syracuse does not currently have any 2026 signees.
What is Syracuse in the post-Boeheim era? That remains an open question, and the next hire figures to be critical to the team’s brand and relevance in college basketball moving forward. Sources said initial candidates for the job include two men with longstanding ties — former assistants/alums Mike Hopkins and Gerry McNamara — in addition to a big curiosity with Saint Louis coach Josh Schertz and additional interest in UConn assistant Luke Murray and South Florida coach Bryan Hodgson.
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