Lol, so now we'd be lucky to bring an Albany school into the fold who has no interest to anybody on the planet further out than Schenectady? C'mon, anything north of Westechester is "Syracuse Country". Siena has had oodles of success in a poor conference. We should add them just because they have a decent arena?
Siena is a viable candidate because they draw around 8000 fans a game in a market of about 250K. Whereas SJ draws about the same amount of fans from a market of 5 million and they only have those numbers because fans of other teams trek to NY to watch their teams play. Saint John's has about the worst fanbase of any major college BB program in the history of the universe and once the geriatrics in the red and white club keel over it wont have any fanbase at all. You might want to pretend like its still 1985 but it isn't.
And while SJU's recent lack of success isn't anything to write home about, we have basketbsll history that was built competing against real competition, not Maac teams like Siena that cruised through their conference just about every year.
Baloney. Saint John's has a recent history of getting the shit kicked out it by elite competition and holding its own against crap teams. Before that and throughout its entire history, except for a brief period between say 1980 and 1990, Louie won 20 a year by beating the stuffing out of schedule made up nearly wholly of creampuffs: NYU, Columbia, St Bonaventure, Niagara, Army, Fordham, Fairleigh ridiculous, etc. The level of competition he scheduled is exactly why he his teams were so so atrocious in the tournament, because he was forced to play teams that didn't suck.
Siena is a decent school with a nice program. I dont think they are the worst choice, but I think they'd be more attractive if they played in a better market. I don't think they can ever grab any market share from Syracuse, and has little interest outside of the Albany area.
Is the criteria for entry into the new and deconstructed BE that the team has to grab a marketshare from Syracuse? Because if so that would leave Saint John's out of the mix. Saint John's can't even outdraw Syracuse when they play at MSG.
News flash: Dayton garners little interest outside Dayton. Richmond garners little interest outside Richmond. And SJ garners little interest outside Queens. That's why we're joining this second rate conference in the first place. Otherwise we'd be in the ACC, with the rest of the good teams.