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LAS VEGAS — A quality basketball team is often determined by its depth and star power. Syracuse had neither throughout its three blunders at the Players Era Festival this week.

Concerns swelled early Monday afternoon when SU ruled star forward Donnie Freeman out for the entire tournament. Freeman is Syracuse’s leading scorer at 17.8 points per game and one of its best defenders. Clearly, the Orange missed that. Syracuse gave up over 70 points in all three games, including a season-high 95 against Iowa State, and never saw a scorer take over.

“It’s not about one player,” third-year head coach Adrian Autry said after SU’s loss to Kansas Tuesday.

But nobody else stepped up consistently.

Syracuse (4-3, 0-0 Atlantic Coast) proved fickle without Freeman throughout its appearance in the 2025 Players Era Festival, where it went 0-3, capped off by Wednesday’s 95-64 blowout loss to No. 15 Iowa State. The Orange rarely received consistent production from their supporting cast over the last three days. Guys who were supposed to come in and perform at a high level instantly, Naithan George and Nate Kingz, struggled all week. And J.J. Starling was a nonfactor.

Before the season started, Autry alluded to the fact that this year’s SU squad is his first group of players who possess the skillsets he wants. A litany of 2023-25 players transferred out. This season’s Orange have just three returners: Freeman, Starling and walk-on Noah Lobdell. Everyone else was carefully picked out by Autry and Syracuse general manager Alex Kline.

Yet, nobody took Freeman’s mantle as the team’s dominant scorer who can take over a game when called upon. Without its star forward, SU played disconnected, and its depth has elicited more questions than answers about how far this team can truly go in 2025-26.

The worst example was Wednesday versus Iowa State, as Syracuse suffered its second-largest blowout loss of Autry’s three-year tenure.

“I’m not making excuses,” Autry said postgame after falling to the Cyclones. “We take accountability. I take accountability as the leader of this program. I just thought we didn’t fight. We just didn’t fight. I thought we let some missed opportunities offensively impact our fight on the other end, and we can’t do that.”

The second half against Iowa State is where not having Freeman on the floor arguably impacted Syracuse the most. It got outscored 60-30 in the final 20 minutes — SU’s worst single-half point differential of the Autry era. The Cyclones lived in the paint, scoring 52 points inside compared to the Orange’s 28, and shot a whopping 71% from the field in the second half.

The examples of nobody stepping up were endless. Starling was held to 10 points on 4-for-9 shooting. George turned the rock over a season-high seven times. Kingz, a 3-point specialist the Orange desperately need to emerge, scored five points. Forward Tyler Betsey shot an atrocious 3-for-14 from the floor, including 2-for-10 from 3. William Kyle III’s plus/minus finished at -25 and Kiyan Anthony’s was a team-low -27.

Syracuse’s best individual performance came from freshman forward Sadiq White, who tallied 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting. Yet he fouled out of the game — his second time doing so in seven contests.

Autry said the Orange’s outing was unacceptable and their second-half showing was “not who we are.”

But, what is this Syracuse team without Freeman?

An 0-3 one.

“Make no mistake about it, we will learn a lot from this,” Autry said, addressing SU’s shortcomings. “We will get better. We will continue to push. What I’m asking my guys to do is very hard. It’s very taxing. ‘Level five fight’ and energy and connection is not easy. It’s not easy.”

Each game painted a different picture of how much the Orange missed Freeman. First, Syracuse put on a surprisingly well-executed effort against No. 3 Houston, but lost 78-74 in an overtime thriller. This contest was SU’s one outlier because Betsey took over the game at times, highlighted by a game-tying 3 with 54.6 seconds left in regulation in a 16-point night.

Imagine if Syracuse had Freeman’s paint presence to pair with Betsey’s four made 3-pointers.

While Monday is more of a regret, Tuesday and Wednesday are when things got difficult without Freeman. In a 71-60 defeat to Kansas, SU was outrebounded 49-29 in his absence and started out completely flat on offense. Then, versus Iowa State, everything went haywire.

Too many guys were ice-cold throughout the week. Anthony went 2-for-12 against Kansas and Starling finished 3-for-13. Betsey followed up his game-one explosion with six 3-point misses against the Jayhawks and a measly 2-for-10 mark from long range versus the Cyclones. Kingz was fairly ineffective the entire Players Era Festival, to which Autry told the Oregon State transfer to stop putting as much pressure on himself as he is currently.

“We believe in him and support him,” Autry said of Kingz. “His work ethic and the type of person he is, there’s no doubt that he’ll get it going.”

Autry’s words about Kingz reflect Syracuse’s roster: everyone is hoping they’ll magically get hot. For now, the Orange’s unrewarding stretch of performances in Las Vegas has diminished their national standing from where it was heading into the week.

For example, Syracuse plummeted in KenPom’s rankings from No. 51 to No. 72 after its lopsided loss to Iowa State.

It might not even get the chance to earn Quad 1 wins at the coveted Players Era Festival in the future, at least according to Autry. Players Era CEO Seth Berger said in a Tuesday press conference that more than 20 programs have already signed on to play in 2026’s proposed 32-team field.

When asked if SU is one of those schools, Autry did not confirm whether the Orange will be invited back.

“I haven’t had that discussion yet,” Autry said. “I don’t know anything about that.”

The Players Era Festival was a chance for Syracuse to show it can compete with the nation’s best. It might not receive that opportunity again.

Published on November 26, 2025 at 5:42 pm
Contact Cooper: ccandrew@syr.edu | @cooper_andrews