A sign hangs in Ryan Daly’s office at the John A. Lally Athletics Complex in Syracuse, N.Y., with the total number of fans that can pack the JMA Wireless Dome — 35,446.
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In November, Syracuse fans will fill the historic college sports venue hoping one of college basketball’s most prominent programs returns to success.
For Daly, who was hired in April as an assistant under new head coach Gerry McNamara, the number is a reminder of the work that lies ahead.
The Havertown native has climbed the coaching ranks at 28 years old, arriving at Syracuse after serving as an assistant at the Albany, Bryant, and Virginia Commonwealth. Daly said none of that would be possible without his Philadelphia basketball roots and the people he met along the way.
“A lot of these opportunities that have come my way have been a result of a lot of people pouring into me,” he said.
A family affair
Growing up in a family of “basketball junkies” sparked a fire in Daly.
His grandfather, Jim Boyle, was the longtime coach of St. Joseph’s, before coaching in the NBA and overseas. His father, Brian, played at Hawk Hill under Boyle, then coached at Penn State.
“We are a Philadelphia basketball family,” said his mother, Tracie Daly. “We weren’t on the outside looking in, we were on the inside.”
Ryan’s earliest basketball memory was at 5 years old, shooting on a Fisher-Price hoop at his grandparents house in Overbrook.
“I don’t remember a time when basketball wasn’t the only thing I thought about or talked about every day,” he said.
Ryan went to St. Denis Catholic School until the seventh grade. Prior to that school year, his family moved to Boston, then State College, Pa. after his dad took a coaching job at Boston University and Penn State, respectively.
Three years later, Ryan and his younger brother Colin approached their parents with a request.
“They came up to us and said, ‘We want to play basketball in the Catholic League,’” Tracie said.
The Philadelphia Catholic League is one of the top high school basketball conferences in the country, and there is a certain type of DNA that those players posses, Ryan said.
Tracie, Ryan, Colin, and their sister, Keri, moved back to the area before Ryan’s sophomore year, while Brian stayed at Penn State to continue coaching. Ryan and Colin both played for Archbishop Carroll.
“Neither of my boys would’ve been able to develop to the basketball players they were if we hadn’t moved back,” Brian said.
‘Tight-knit community’
Philadelphia basketball became Ryan Daly’s classroom.
Daly grew up hearing stories about the Sonny Hill, Speedy Morris, John Chaney, Phil Martelli Sr., and Jay Wright — legends of Philadelphia basketball. Jim Lynam — also known as pop — was another mentor. Those relationships gave him an appreciation for the city’s basketball culture.
“Philadelphia is a special basketball community,” he said. “ … To see so many people coaching and involved with it, it’s one big circle and it feels like it’s a very small tight-knit community.”
However, his own college recruiting process wasn’t easy.
Daly was a star on his nationallyranked AAU team, the Jersey Shore Warriors, and at Carroll — he won PCL MVP in 2016 — but didn’t receive many scholarship offers. It was a stressful time, he said, but his own experience became one of the biggest lessons in his coaching career.
“It taught me patience with evaluating players,” he said. “You might see them on a really good day, and that’s not really who they are or you might see them on a bad day and they are a lot better than that.”
He committed to the University of Delaware two days before graduating high school without visiting the campus.
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Daly had two standout seasons at Delaware, surpassing 1,000 career points. He then transferred to St. Joe’s and led the Atlantic-10 and Big 5 in scoring from 2019 to 2021.
Daly briefly pursued a career in the NBA G League, but living out of hotels and being away from his family was not for him. He quickly realized coaching was where he belonged and accepted his first coaching position at Albany when he was 24.
Soaking it in
At Albany, Bryant, and VCU, Daly immersed himself in the coaching profession, working early mornings and late nights and soaking up every piece of information from those he worked with.
He credits Albany head coach Dwayne Killings for teaching him creativity and VCU head coach Phil Martelli Jr., whom Daly followed from Bryant to the Rams, on how to recruit.
Each of those schools helped him develop his coaching philosophy.
One mantra in particular has stayed with him. Martelli Jr. often reminded Daly to “believe further than you can see.”
“When he said that line to me a year and a half ago it really stuck out to me,” Daly said. “You never know when opportunities are going to come, you just have to be ready for it.”
That philosophy carried Daly to two conference championships and two NCAA Tournament appearances in consecutive seasons at Bryant and VCU.
Relationship-driven sport
Daly’s relationship with McNamara began long before he got the call to join the Syracuse coaching staff.
When Daly was a sophomore at Carroll, McNamara was recruiting his teammate, Derrick Jones Jr. McNamara attended open practices twice a week, and often spoke to Daly after practice.
“He took me aside a lot and was like ‘I don’t understand why coaches aren’t recruiting you, you should have a lot of interest and offers right now,’” Daly said.
Years later, when Ryan was a coach at Albany, they reconnected at a Coaches vs. Cancer event.
“I walked up to him and said, ‘I don’t know if you remember me,” he said.
McNamara’s response was immediate: “‘Of course I remember you,’” Daly recalled.
Since then, Ryan and McNamara kept in touch, texting each other about wins or recruits, while also seeing each other frequently on the road. When McNamara was announced as Syracuse’s new head coach, Daly texted him saying congratulations. Two days later, Daly received the call from McNamara asking to join his staff.
But leaving VCU was not an easy decision.
“In some sense it was the hardest thing I ever did,” he said. “In some sense, it was a no-brainer.
“The part that was exciting for me was that growing up I remember seeing Syracuse in the Final Four and Sweet Sixteen. The Orange is synonymous with March, and the challenge of bringing them back to that was exciting.”
Brian Daly emphasized to Ryan growing up that building connections was an important part of life, but also in the sports community. And those relationships are exactly how he has advanced in the profession and ended up at Syracuse.
The last time Syracuse made an NCAA Tournament appearance was in 2021 and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. The program won its first and only national championship in 2003, when McNamara was a player on the team.
Soon 35,446 fans will be able to fill the Dome to see what McNamara and Daly are building in Syracuse.
“I know the fans are diehard supporters, and experiencing people who live, eat, sleep, and breathe Syracuse men’s basketball in the Dome every night, you really can’t ask for anything more as a coach and a player,” Ryan said. “It’s a real home court advantage, and we want to bring that back.”
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