I'm seeing a lot of people imply that if Lavin can't succeed here, then maybe we need to temper our expectations. And, certainly our recent coaching history suggests that the HC at St Johns isn't an easy job, but it's not impossible. SJU has a lot going in it's favor and I think to a large extend, it is indeed a "sleeping giant".
1) New York
Regardless of whether we are "NY's Team", or not, demographics alone are a huge advantage for St Johns. Our recruiting area in the tri-state is home to 10million people. That's enormous. There are more basketball players in Brooklyn alone than there are in cities like Chicago, Boston, or Miami or in a lot of states. And sure, city basketball might not be what it once was, but that's only because the receent stars - the Lebrons, Kobes, and Durants haven't hailed from NY. But, year in and year out there are a ton of good college players coming out of of our region; more than enough to sustain a successful program, even if we don't land the Lances, the Briscoes, or Kyle Andersons. The "second tier" recruits like Omar Calhoun, Jaren Sina, and Kamari Murphy are the lifeblood of a lot of programs, and should be the backbone of ours.
Lavin is an excellent recruiter (for the most part), but at the end of the day he's a CA guy with national recruiting ties. And we've benefited from those connections for sure. But, the old-timers on here are right. Our program can be supplemented by national recruits, but at the end of the day it should be based on kids from queens, brooklyn, the bronx and northern jersey. We won't get all of them, and we probably won't get the McDonalds All Americans, but there's more than enough to get our share of the rest.
2) $$
The biggest difference between the Norm-era and what we're experiencing now is the resources that are being devoted to the program, both from the University and from donors. Coach Lavin has a very well paid coaching staff, when clearly Norm did not. No expense is being sparred on recruit visits now (the 40-40 club, the dinners, etc), the team stays at better hotels and even stays at a midtown hotel the night before MSG home games, and I can only imagine what the travel budget is now for the coaching staff. Plus, of course, we've shown that we can pay a coach $2mil a year. And that's a big big raise for guys coming from Manhatta, URI, or Buffalo. If this type of support continues we won't fall back to the Norm days.
And with the money we get from Fox now, there's no reason to think it will stop. (assuming the coach doesn't piss-off our friend Mike).
3) Exposure
Say what you want about being overshadowed by the Knicks and Rangers, but there is a lot of truth to the fact that guys like Hardy and Moe got their names out there because they were plastered all over the back-pages of the local sports sections. Between MSG, the media, and Under Armour ... we may not have the exposure of UNC but we are still relevant. And the new Big East, while not the colossus that the old conference was, still has us on a national network, and we're still playing national programs like Georgetown, Villanova, Syracuse, and Duke. The conference in and of itself won't kill this program. It may not propel us, but it's more than stable enough to support St Johns if we do the other things right. Memphis, UNLV, UCONN etc aren't in a Power conference anymore either, and they're still bringing in top 100 recruits, as is Gonzaga, VCU, Providence, San Diego, and Marquette etc.
The bottom-line is that we do not have to settle for being irrelevant. SJU might not have as many built in advantages as Michigan State or Duke, but there are pluses to coaching and playing here. We can rise again. And it doesn't have to take "many years". There is no guarantee that Jordan and Obekpa will be gone, every spring transfer recruits and de-commitments become available, and the hiring of a new coach always creates buzz around a program.
4. We have the "Syracuse Orange NY's college basketball team" sponsoring our games on the YES network. That can only help our exposure.
The follow on question is would Admin have enough stones to put a commercial on Raycom Sports (not sure if that is who still telecasts the non-ESPN games for the ACC) stating SJ's is NYC's team (after we off to a good start this year).