Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our sports newsletter here.

2026 is a high-stakes season for Syracuse. It’s the most important since Gary Gait took over in 2021, and it’s on the head coach to deliver a national championship.

Since Gait’s disastrous first campaign, in which SU won four games, it has steadily improved. The Orange claimed eight victories in 2023, missing the NCAA Tournament with an extremely young roster. Over the past two seasons, Syracuse put itself in contention for the national championship. In 2024, it fell to Denver in the quarterfinals. Last year, the Orange made their first Final Four appearance since 2013, which ended with a disappointing loss to Maryland.

SU returns a senior-laden group, led by Joey Spallina, Michael Leo, Billy Dwan, Riley Figueiras and Luke Rhoa.

The Orange have the pieces to win. That’s why it’s championship or bust for Syracuse in 2026.

Gait might not get a better shot in the next decade. The core of his squad has been through battles over the past three seasons, and it’s gotten a taste of success. Gait can no longer rely on the excuse of inexperience. The 58-year-old has been with this group long enough to know how to get the best out of them. And if he can’t, the past four years might be looked at as a disappointment.

“They’ve demonstrated the growth over the last three or four years here, that they’ve been getting better every year, and that are strategies and recruiting and everything’s kind of paid off,” Gait said on Jan. 22. “And we’ve developed these kids so that we’re in that level where we can win any game that we play this year, so that gives us a chance to win a championship.”

Everyone within the program knows the pressure’s on this season. Its famed 2022 recruiting class started as a young and reckless group. Now, they’re seasoned veterans with their eyes on delivering the Orange’s first national championship since 2009.

As Spallina, the Tewaaraton Award favorite, put it: “winning the national championship is the only thing I give a sh— about.”

There’s no true dominant team heading into this season. Cornell’s CJ Kirst — one of the best college lacrosse players in recent memory — graduated and, though the Big Red are talented, life without Kirst will be an adjustment.

There are also questions in the Atlantic Coast Conference. No. 8 Notre Dame won’t have Chris or Pat Kavanagh, the driving forces behind their back-to-back national titles in 2023 and 2024. No. 11 Duke also has plenty of questions offensively, while No. 14 Virginia is coming off its lowest win total (six) since 1978.

SU’s main challengers will be explosive offenses like No. 6 North Carolina and No. 2 Princeton, which the Orange beat in the NCAA Quarterfinals last season.

Oh, and No. 1 Maryland. Yes, the team Gait can’t seem to solve, with five straight losses against. Syracuse will meet the top two-ranked teams during the regular season, which will be a good barometer to see what this team is made of.

Gait’s mettle will be tested in those games. Talent-wise, the Orange can match up with anyone in the country. The difference will be whether Gait can outsmart someone like John Tillman, which, so far, he hasn’t proved he can do.

In every meeting, the two-time national title-winning coach has outwitted Gait. SU looked unprepared in its defeat last May and withered away in the second half of the regular season meeting.

It’s harsh to bash Gait for losing to Tillman. Everyone does. But Syracuse also fell short in 2024 against an experienced Denver team, where you can say Matt Brown outcoached Gait. The Orange likely should’ve lost in the opening round of last season’s tournament, too. They trailed by six goals against Harvard, and Gerry Byrne was coaching circles around Gait.

Sometimes that can boil down to players not executing, but when a team comes out as flat as Syracuse did, that’s a coaching issue. SU can’t afford those missteps this year. Not with how much is riding on the season.

Outside of Payton Anderson, John Mullen and Jimmy McCool, every key contributor will be gone after this year. The 2022 recruiting class was supposed to bring Syracuse “back.” The definition of “back” is always debated, but Syracuse is the most successful college lacrosse program in history, so the easiest answer is with a national championship.

And with that comes a sense of urgency.

“It’s easy when you haven’t played anybody to say all the right things, and we’re doing the right things right now, and we’re going to be tested,” Gait said. “It’s how we handle pressure and adversity as the season goes on, but our goal is to get back to the Final Four and win a national championship. So these guys are dialed in. They’re pretty focused, and they’re driven to get that done.”

Syracuse graduated four starters from last season: attack Owen Hiltz, midfielder Sam English, defender Michael Grace and short-stick defensive midfielder Carter Rice. Hiltz provided consistent offensive production, while English did it all as a two-way force. Rice and Grace were crucial to SU’s defense, meaning there are holes to fill.

But every program around the country lost starters. Few retained as much as Syracuse did. Former Ohio State SSDM Dante Bowen was SU’s lone transfer portal addition, signaling Gait trusts his in-house players will step up.

SU’s head coach certainly doesn’t lack confidence in his group. Just look at the schedule he constructed. Syracuse will face nine NCAA Tournament teams from 2025, including four quarterfinalists. Even the games against non-tournament teams — No. 15 Johns Hopkins, UVA and No. 17 BU — will be challenging.

The Orange will also play eight road games, two more than Gait’s ever scheduled before.

“People always complain that we don’t play enough on the road, so now’s our chance to prove that we can do that and do it well,” Gait said of the mammoth schedule.

That quote is telling. Gait seemingly wants to prove a point with this team. He knows they’re uber-talented and are driven to bring glory back to Syracuse. Maybe it’s naive to craft a schedule with virtually no layups. Challenges every week could burn the Orange out come tournament time in May.

Or maybe it’s being cocky. Either way, Syracuse is arguably the best team in the country this season, and Gait wants to show that.

He played for one of the best lacrosse coaches of all time in Roy Simmons Jr., a creative force who revolutionized the sport. Simmons Jr.’s assistant John Desko took over for his mentor in 1998 and equaled his five national championships.

Desko’s final decade in charge was mediocre for Syracuse’s standards, with one Final Four (2013), leaving Gait to rebuild the program. Still, like Simmons Jr., Desko knew how to win.

Gait has the chance to carry on that tradition. He won championships as a player and his first four years at the helm for SU have all built to this moment.

Now, it’s time to live up to the legacy of those before him in a do-or-die season for Syracuse.

Published on January 28, 2026 at 11:35 pm
Contact Zak: zakwolf784254@gmail.com | @ZakWolf22