Syracuse, N.Y. - Throughout the spring and summer, whenever Syracuse basketball coach Adrian Autry issued public remarks about his 2025-26 team, he made sure to underline the importance of retaining his two best players from last season.

JJ Starling and Donnie Freeman are back. And they were influential, Autry said, in deciding which players the Orange would pursue in the transfer portal.

But if their return signaled a triumph for the program, it also revealed a stark reality of college basketball in the portal era.

Syracuse has had just a few summer and fall weeks to get 11 new players accustomed to Starling, Freeman, the Orange coaching staff and each other.

And while replacing the majority of players from a 14-19 season seems on the surface to be essential, integrating these new moving parts requires a deft blend of talent and personality evaluation, plus a plan to achieve timely basketball alchemy.

Autry said the program has worked on bringing players together to establish a level of trust and cooperation.

"We've had some people come in and, you know, do some workshops," he said. "And really spend time with each other, trying to get to know each other outside of the court and understand each other."

The team traveled to Brooklyn last summer to kick back, have fun and learn a little about each other. (SU did that the summer of 2024, too.)

Autry mentioned bowling outings, movie nights and team dinners. He said the program invited speakers to workshop ideas with players. Starling said the team goes to church together. A group of SU players recently attended a women's volleyball game.

William Kyle, who arrived in Syracuse in June after finishing his academic obligations in Los Angeles, is playing for his third team in four years. He said social media allows players to get acquainted with and text each other before they ever meet in person.

Naithan George and Akir Souare, teammates in high school and for two years at Georgia Tech, worked out in L.A. in the spring and early summer, Kyle said. Their California presence allowed Kyle to get to know them before reconvening on SU's campus.

"I feel like the transition period wasn't really all that hard," Kyle said. "We all share the same goal of we want to get Syracuse back to where Syracuse needs to be. And we all really came together and really bought in. I feel like that's really helped our chemistry."

Other Syracuse players said summer workouts with new strength and conditioning coach Rob Harris helped draw players close. The conditioning and the perseverance needed to survive those sessions went a long way toward establishing individual bonds, said SU guard Nate Kingz.

"I'd just say constantly being together with each other every day has worked really well for us," Kingz said.

Syracuse beat Buffalo on the road in a Saturday exhibition. The Orange plays Pace on Wednesday to close out the practice games.

The first real test awaits on Nov. 3, when all these disparate Orange parts need to coalesce to win a college basketball game.