Indiana men’s basketball’s nonconference slate for the 2026-27 season is starting to take shape after the Hoosiers added a neutral-site contest with Syracuse University, first reported by College Hoops Today’s Jon Rothstein on Wednesday. Indiana is set to play the Orange on Nov. 9 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
Indiana has officially added three games to its nonconference schedule for next season. The Hoosiers will face the University of Kentucky on Dec. 27 at Lucas Oil Stadium and Bellarmine University on Nov. 5 at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
Indiana and Syracuse have played one another seven times — of which Indiana has won one. In their last contest, the Orange downed the Hoosiers 112-110 in double overtime on Nov. 30, 2021, in Syracuse, New York.
The pair first met in the 1987 NCAA men’s basketball championship game. Then-junior guard Keith Smart nailed a jump shot with five seconds left to propel the Hoosiers to a 74-73 victory and their fifth and most recent championship banner.
Syracuse concluded its 2025-26 season with a 15-17 overall record and a 6-12 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference play. The Orange upset the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 62-60 on Dec. 2, but Syracuse finished the season 1-11 in Quadrant 1 games.
For a storied college basketball program that has made six Final Fours and won the 2003 national championship, the Orange have not made the NCAA Tournament since the 2020-21 season. Head coach Adrian Autry was fired on March 11 after compiling a 49-48 record during his three seasons at the helm.
Syracuse then hired former Siena University head coach Gerry McNamara on March 24. McNamara was a key player on the 2003 national championship squad and spent 14 seasons as an assistant coach at Syracuse under Jim Boeheim from 2009-23 and was associate head coach under Autry during the 2023-24 season.
McNamara led Siena to a 37-30 record in his two seasons as head coach. The Saints finished the 2025-26 season 23-12 and won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament to clinch their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2010.
Indiana finished the 2025-26 season with an 18-14 overall record and a 9-11 mark in Big Ten play, missing the NCAA Tournament for the third consecutive season. The Hoosiers’ season concluded with a 74-61 defeat to Northwestern in the Big Ten Tournament on March 11.
With the matchup categorized as a neutral-site contest, Syracuse must be in the top 50 in the NET Rankings for it to count as a Quadrant 1 game for Indiana — compared to top 30 if the contest were held inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington. In Darian DeVries’ first season as Indiana head coach, the Hoosiers finished 3-10 in Quadrant 1 contests.
Sean McAvoy covers Indiana women’s basketball for the Indiana Daily Student. You can follow him at @sean_mc07 and contact him via email at semcavoy@iu.edu.
