Gerry McNamara hasn’t even coached his first game at Syracuse yet, and the recruiting ripple effects are already moving. The question isn’t whether players will follow him from Siena. It’s which ones.
Two names are already circulating, and both make a lot of sense.
Gavin Doty: The Hometown Kid Who Was Born for This
Per WYNT’s Jack Keys: “Syracuse now early, strong favorites to land Gavin Doty, should he throw his name in the transfer portal. Gerry McNamara absolutely loves the kid. Doty loves playing for him and he’s from Fulton — just 30 minutes north of campus.”
It’s hard to draw up a cleaner fit. Doty is a Fulton native who first connected with McNamara through Syracuse’s basketball camp circuit. When McNamara landed at Siena, Doty was one of his first calls. Now McNamara is at the school Doty grew up watching. Some recruiting pitches don’t need much polish.
The player himself is worth getting excited about. The 6-foot-5 sophomore guard averaged 17.9 points, 7.0 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.2 steals this past year, a massive leap from his freshman campaign. He earned unanimous All-MAAC honors and MAAC Tournament MVP after leading the Saints to the conference title, then put up 21 points against Duke in the NCAA Tournament first round in a game Siena led for long stretches before falling 71-65.
That performance alone put him on radars he wasn’t on before.
McNamara has described Doty as a kindred spirit rather than simply a player he coaches, someone who competes with the same relentless edge. That kind of relationship travels.
If Doty enters the portal, Syracuse won’t just be the frontrunner. It will be over quickly.
Francis Folefac: The Freshman the NBA is Already Watching
Doty is the headliner. Folefac might be the more interesting long-term story.
The 6’7″ freshman forward arrived at Siena this season as a highly-touted prospect and spent the year making good on it quietly. NoCeilingsNBA’s Quinn Fishburne flagged him as a future NBA player with an “intriguing foundation of ancillary skill sets,” and when you look at the numbers, it’s not hard to see why.
Folefac averaged 11.2 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.3 blocks as a freshman but it’s his advanced stats that tell the real story. Folefac posted an 8.5% offensive rebound rate, a 5.6% block rate, and an impressive 59.6% free throw rate.
His offensive game is deliberately unconventional for his size. He mainly roams the dunker spot and attacks the basket rather than hunting threes, having attempted just 10 all season. Within that role, he has been lethal, shooting 64.2% as a cutter (34-of-53) and 59.4% as a roll man (19-of-32). He also has flashes of genuine ball-handling ability going downhill, and plays with a physicality in the post that is unusual for a freshman.
Defensively, his wingspan creates problems that don’t always show up cleanly in box scores. He is strong enough to anchor the paint and quick enough to close out on the perimeter, a combination coaches at the high-major level spend years trying to find.
The biggest stage brought out his best performance of the season. Against Duke in the NCAA Tournament, Folefac scored 18 points on the top overall seed and limited Cameron Boozer to just 19 points with five turnovers. For a freshman playing the biggest game of his life, against arguably the best player in college basketball, it was a statement.
Folefac is only 18 years old and has already proven that he can handle the ACC’s best.
That’s a ceiling that Syracuse fans can genuinely get excited about.
McNamara Expected To Make An Immediate Impact
Syracuse fans have spent months wondering what the rebuild is going to look like. If McNamara arrives with Doty’s scoring and Folefac’s upside already in tow, they’ll have their answer before the first practice. The Orange are also expected to increase NIL spending to the top-third of the ACC, which should allow McNamara to bring back the glory days to a basketball program that has missed the NCAA Tournament for a record five straight seasons.
