... what does that even mean? Has St. John's ever had success with a Brazilian player, while we're at it? Past history of other, unrelated players has little to do with current recruiting. If you can point out a baller from the southwest who had a terrible time and froze in the snow while being dissed by KRS-One's posse or the Kiss army or the cast of the Sopranos... then that could be an issue.
Jesus Peter. . get off your high horse, it was just a question..?
Where is someone to make a historical crack about Jesus and Peter...? 
I should have added a smiley face; I meant that (I thought obviously) as a bit of humor. Has St. John's ever had success with a Martian?
Really, I'm saying that while St. John's should have a core of New York/ NJ/ PA players, it's not that important that this one player is from Arizona. A good program has got to get good players from all over. Not like this Matthews kid is as far under the radar as Ty Edmondson!
St. John's has historically not had any success with kids being strong players for the program who come from the4 western part of the country.
Choz is 100% correct, the teams needs to get kids from the city to lead it back. Omari Lawrence is a great start and dwight Hardy could end up being a great addition.
Jarvis lost the core city players and then lost his program. All of the coaches before Norm have had high level of success with kids from the city.
Can anyone tell me the last time St. John's had a highly productive player from west of the Mississippi.
You have a point, but it's a skewed point. West of the Mississippi is a terribly arbitrary location. And truly, part of the downfall of the recruiting has been the inability to keep players at home - both the ones who want to stay and the ones who think about leaving. If this program gets back to national prominence, there will be players who will talk about wanting to leave who won't be able to pass up the chance to make the Garden pop.
But just because historically St. John's hasn't had a major baller from west of the Delaware Water Gap (except DJ Kennedy) doesn't mean that history has a lot to do with recruiting.
They SHOULD keep NYC/ NJ players home. This is something they need to do.
But there are 9 slots coming open in a couple of years. What's wrong with a contributor from Mars, Brazil, Utah, St. Louis if they're up to snuff and want to come?
"Historically" St. John's has wanted to keep with their regional profile, the idea of recruiting on a budget of tokens. The current staff, even, wants to keep it regional, obviously. But one player from Arizona doesn't undo a regional focus. When they're going after all the Findlay Prep guys and dudes from Oregon, then we've got a problem.
But I'd love to see Tony Wroten in a St. John's uni.