Per Alex Kline twitter Ishmail wainwright said that St john's and ucla are recruiting him the hardest.
I was just about to post it, as well. Interesting.... It feels good to be in conversation and knowingly, can grab highly rated kids.
Lavin is building UCLA-EAST. We're more than in the conversation and we're not just making lists. We're finalists for just about everybody we set in our sights. I am in awe.
We'll be doubling UCLA's attendance in three years
The funny thing Marillac, is that our attendance is limited a little bit by our small on campus arena, but certainly our numbers at msg can improve by a ton, and I'm positive they will...
I know...I hate that our arena holds so few. I think we are going to be seeing more Garden games as we are now a high profile brand (awesome). I think we have the people on board to have a few creative Garden double-headers to draw more fans. STJ-Fordham and Iona-Manhattan could get 10,000-12,000 to the Garden I'd think. Wagner is up-and-coming as well and could help draw with the Hurleys.
Eff that. I agree with more Garden games, but make em big OOC games, not Wagner, Iona etc. Sorry, but those guys should never share MSG with us. No need. We can get just about any high profile OOC team we want to come play at MSG. Everybody is dying to play there. Need to use it to our advantage. Duke draws amazingly well. Since we're playing in the Big East-SEC this season, maybe we invite UK next time around.. They'll travel for sure. If we are going to invite OOC games to MSG on our home slate, they should be games that provide us a strategic advantage.
I hear what you're saying, but we still need some cupcakes. I don't see a problem with two Garden double-headers with the locals. The good locals average about 2,000 fans per game. You'd have to imagine that anything involving St. John's (forget a ranked St. John's team) would add a thousand to that figure. We could be looking at 9,000 fans from the other schools to add to our figure.
FWIW, I think we'd spank UK next year after it has a mass exodus. That would be a sellout for sure...they travel well.
I'd love to see us bring in a few of the kings of college basketball on an annual basis: UCLA, UNC, UK, Kansas, etc. As we start to draw more, we will have more leverage with the Garden to limit how many other college teams they invite. I think UCLA-St. John's should be an annual rivalry. It makes so much sense: NY v. LA, East v. West, Big East v. Pac-10, two of the most storied programs in the history of college basketball, Lavin....