The Syracuse Orange men's basketball team rebounded from an exhibition opening loss against the UConn Huskies to beat the Siena Saints on Sunday afternoon at the MVP Arena in Albany, N.Y.

The Orange were severely tested, but ended up coming out with an 81-76 win.

Syracuse will have one more exhibition game against Niagara next Saturday before beginning the regular season on Nov. 2 against New Haven. 

Here's what you need to know about the win over Siena. The takeaways are in no particular order.

Before the game started, Siena rose the championship banner for the 2025-26 MAAC title team, and the program also passed out rings.

Gerry McNamara, who was the head coach of the Saints last season, participated in the ceremony, as did members of his staff and former Siena players Gavin Doty, Francis Folefac and Tasman Goodrick.

The Orange were down 6-0 to start the game and were down most of the first half as well. They trailed 39-38 at the break before taking a 13-point lead in the second half. However, Siena hung around and got it to 75-74 with 1:29 to play.

Syracuse was able to solidify the win because of made free-throws and missed Siena 3-pointers.

After getting out-rebounded by eight against UConn, Syracuse was out-rebounded 43-37 in this one. Getting out-rebounded by a mid-major team is certainly not what McNamara will want to see. Sadiq White Jr., who was critical of his one-rebound performance against UConn, had only one rebound again in this one. Luke Wilson led the way with eight.

Garwey Dual, who only played 10 minutes against the Huskies, had a bigger impact in this one. He only played 12 minutes in total, but he had eight points, five rebounds and two assists, proving he's capable of helping this team.

Mark Marano, who didn't play at all against UConn, had 18 points, including going 4-of-6 from downtown. He started this game.

The son of Carmelo Anthony played just eight minutes and did not score. He pulled down one rebound and had two fouls.

Was McNamara just testing out some different lineup combinations? Maybe. Is Anthony falling down the depth chart? Also maybe.

Doty played 37 minutes in his homecoming, leading the Orange with 20 points on 4-of-15 shooting. He was 9-of-10 at the foul line, which went a long way toward helping in this victory.

We asked this against UConn and it remains a question here: Who is capable of just putting their head down and getting a bucket for this team? Syracuse has good players who can score within the confines of a set offense, but who can just take the ball and create something when the team needs it?

We're still waiting for that answer.