Syracuse men’s basketball: Scouting Oregon State transfer Nate Kingz

Sam breaks down Syracuse’s newest sharpshooter

Syracuse Orange men’s basketball’s second transfer addition of the 2025-26 cycle was Oregon State wing Nate Kingz.

Kingz is a sharpshooting, 6 foot 5 wing who played his first few years of college at levels below Division I. In 2024-25, he started all 31 games for the Beavers, averaging 11.8 points, 2.5 rebounds, and shooting 44.6% from three on 4.2 attempts per game.

Under head coach Wayne Tinkle, Oregon State has typically been a slow-paced offensive team, but he has a deep playbook that typically takes a while to develop, but creates good looks, especially on post-ups. The Beavers ranked 310th in average possession length, but had the WCC’s third best offense, and ranked in the top 50 nationally in effective field goal percentage.

OSU was 93rd percentile in off-ball screen frequency, and didn’t use ball screens as often as much of the sport, ranking in just the 8th percentile in frequency.

This season, he shot 54.2% on unguarded catch-and-shoot threes, and 40.8% on guarded catch-and-shoot threes. As Oregon State’s primary outside shooting threat, Tinkle ran a lot of different actions for him. He finished second in the WCC in points scored per game off of off-ball screens, which he used to create outside looks, and downhill driving chances.

To create three-pointers, Kingz would often come from the opposite block with a single down screen or a stagger for a wing three. Tinkle loved bringing him from the backside of the action around the defense into his shooting position.

He doesn’t need to be fully set to hit his outside shots, and he’s adept at relocating on drives and post touches to find the free passing lane where he can be found for threes. But the most important thing for Syracuse on those types of plays is to engage the defense and create those creases.

Kingz also shot exactly 50% on spot-up threes this season, finishing in the 99th percentile of spot-up efficiency.

The most common action that freed Kingz for a downhill drive would be the exact same type of action, except curling off of it to catch it either higher up the court, or tighter into the foul line. His handle isn’t especially tight, so it doesn’t always look comfortable, but once he does get to the rim, Kingz is a good finisher. He shot 62.5% at the rim in the half-court this past season, just below 60% in his season at JUCO, and 62.2% in his season at Westmont (which was an NAIA school at the time he played there)

In these situations, he’ll most commonly catch the ball at the right elbow, allowing him to attack with his strong hand, the left. 24 of his 28 tracked drives to the basket last season were going left.

To expand on his handle, Kingz didn’t turn the ball over very much, but he tries to avoid high-leverage dribbles with his right hand, or forcing the ball to his left hand.

Even when he did get to his spot, it wasn’t always the most graceful. Also, only one of Kingz’ 58 three-pointers came off the dribble. He’s been a pure catch-and-shoot threat at both JUCO and Division I.

He wasn’t a common mid-range threat, but he has the touch to score from anywhere on the floor.

Oregon State was an extremely heavy post-up team, ranking in the 98th percentile of post-up frequency. Many of Kingz’ assists came on entry passes to Parsa Fallah and OSU’s other big men. With the current Syracuse roster, it’s unlikely that the Orange will have a similar outlet for Kingz to pass the ball down low. He’ll need to create his assists off of his own shooting gravity, finding slips when he comes off of screens and catches the ball on the wing.

When he would get denied on the perimeter and had to drive to the basket, he was much more comfortable driving with his left hand, even showing the ability to make nice passes on his drives.

He won’t be operating out of many pick-and-rolls for Syracuse, as Naithan George is one of the nation’s most prolific ball screen conductors, and he’ll likely have most of the playmaking responsibility, but Kingz provides solid ancillary playmaking with room to grow.

On the defensive side of the ball, Oregon State wouldn’t assign Kingz to the primary ball handlers. He’s very jumpy, which can sometimes work out in his benefit (he had a block rate higher than the average guard), but also caught him out of position plenty.

Of Kingz’ 14 blocks last season, nine of them were three pointers.

He had the size to guard threes in the WCC, which was his main role, as Oregon State had Josiah Lake and Polo Minor guarding the two backcourt threats, and so he spent a lot of time as a help-side defender. For example, against San Francisco, he was the primary matchup for freshman wing Tyrone Riley (a legit candidate for WCC POY next year), but he was not a primary ball handler, as Lake and Minor defended Malik Thomas and Marcus Williams.

Because of this, he was not always extremely connected when he did switch onto the ball. There was a specific play against San Francisco where Kingz had the wrong angle on a ball screen, and gave up a driving lane.

It’s absolutely nitpicking at his game to point out one play, but he did have drifts of focus throughout the year on that end, this being one of them.

However, I do think Kingz is plenty capable of defending at an ACC level. He’s athletic enough and big enough, although he may be a tad undersized against some ACC wings, but at the end of the day, it will come down to his motor and focus.

He got pushed around a little by Santa Clara’s next breakout stud Elijah Mahi, but had the athleticism to stay with him and make him come into his body on this critical late game drive, affecting the shot.

Whether Nate Kingz will be successful at Syracuse, first and foremost, comes down to if he makes his threes. The Orange are paying him to make threes, and if he’s not, his value on the court does drop. The expectation is that he’s able to come in, make multiple threes per game, and be one of the ACC’s top shooters, opening up the middle of the floor for the ball screen game that Syracuse wants to run with George and JJ Starling.

If Syracuse makes the NCAA Tournament next year, Kingz likely shoots over 40% from three, and averages 9-12 points per game, while digging down and playing the best defense of his career. He’s not the only factor that will contribute to whether the season is a success, but he’s a very important one.