Syracuse, N.Y. — This Saturday the Syracuse Orange basketball team will play a rare road game against a non-Power Five conference team when it faces Drexel at the XFinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia.
Last month, Syracuse played an exhibition game against Division I foe Buffalo at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.
Prior to Saturday’s game against Drexel (3:30 p.m.; Peacock), the last time Syracuse played an unranked team from a non-Power Five conference on the road was a game in the 2006-07 season. On Nov. 25, 2006, Syracuse beat Canisius, 81-71 at Buffalo’s HSBC Arena.
It’s unclear when or if Syracuse last played one of its two allotted exhibition games outside the JMA Wireless (nee Carrier) Dome, but records show no such games since 1998.
The common thread linking these two history-making road trips?
Buffalo and Philadelphia are both sites of first- and second-round games in the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
Syracuse coach Adrian Autry confirmed that the designation as an NCAA Tournament site was a factor in scheduling both games in his post-game press conference following the Buffalo game.
“It definitely did. That’s the plan, you know,” Autry said. “I just felt like it’s something that sends a good message to our team and our fans that, hey, this is what we’re trying to do.”
In a conversation earlier this week, Autry revisited the reasons behind playing Drexel and Buffalo away from home.
Was he being a bit ambitious in scheduling these games? After all, Syracuse has gone four years without earning an NCAA Tournament bid.
“Ambitious is one way to describe it, but there’s nothing wrong with that,” Autry said. “The fact that the NCAA Tournament will be in those arenas, yeah, those are arenas we want to play in.
“But that was just part of it,” he added. “There are other reasons as well.”
Those other reasons focus on reconnecting with fan bases outside of Central New York and returning to recruiting hotbeds.
In the past, Syracuse recruited the likes of Scoop Jardine, Rick Jackson and Dion Waiters out of Philly. Similarly, Buffalo-area recruits included Damone Brown, Malik Campbell, Jonny Flynn and Paul Harris.
“Playing Buffalo and playing Drexel in Philadelphia gives us the chance to reconnect with different fan bases,” Autry said. “Those are two areas we hadn’t been to in a while. As potential NCAA sites, it made those opportunities more intriguing.”
The Syracuse-Drexel game on Saturday is the second game of a college double-header dubbed Basketball on Broad. The first game features Penn State against LaSalle.
Syracuse’s last trip to Philadelphia was for a game against former Big East rival Villanova on Dec. 20, 2014.
Could Syracuse make another visit to the City of Brotherly Love this March?
“That’s the end goal,” Autry said, “to be playing in one of these sites.”
