Syracuse men's basketball is officially set to lose every member of its starting lineup from the 2025-26 team in 2026-27.

JJ Starling and William Kyle III are being lost to graduation, while Donnie Freeman is in the transfer portal. Naithan George entered the portal as well before committing to Pitt, and on Friday, guard Nate Kingz entered the portal also.

Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports had that information on social media.

While the portal news is interesting and assures that Kingz won't be back with the Orange, there was no guarantee that he was going to be granted another year of eligibility anyways. He had previously expressed interest in returning to Syracuse.

Kingz spent his freshman year at an NAIA school, then went to a junior college for his sophomore year and redshirted in his junior year because of injury. He played a redshirt junior year at Oregon State and this past year at Syracuse. So, he's already played four years and received a redshirt: The possible extra year of eligibility he's exploring likely comes from deciding whether those NAIA/JUCO years count against his eligibility clock.

Regardless of how it all plays out, Kingz was a welcome addition to the Orange program, providing multiple big offensive games. He averaged 12.2 ppg on 49.3 percent shooting, while also shooting 36.7 percent from three-point range. On a team that didn't shoot well from deep, he was by far the best, and most consistent, option. 

For more information on the Kingz situation, perhaps we can draw parallels between him and former Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia.

Per ESPN:

The NCAA Division I Board of Directors on Monday approved a blanket waiver granting an additional year of eligibility to former junior college transfers in similar positions to Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, opening the door for a wave of college athletes across all sports to spend one more year in college athletics.

According to an NCAA memo, the waiver extends an extra year of eligibility in 2025-26 to athletes who previously "competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years" and otherwise would have exhausted their NCAA eligibility following the 2024-25 season.

Kingz seems to fit that criteria.

In addition to those five starters, Syracuse has also lost bench players Akir Souare, Luke Fennell and Tyler Betsey to the portal. Betsey recently committed to BYU.

However, new head coach Gerry McNamara has also been active in acquiring talent. We took stock of where the Orange roster is at this point in the offseason cycle on Thursday.

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