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The St. John's AD announced that the school is in negotiations with Madison Square Garden to play all it's Big East home games at the Garden starting next year. I think nine games plus the Holiday Festival and one other high profile game (Duke) is a little much personally. If we did a total of seven at the Garden and the rest in Queens that works. Let's see what they do.

The AD said the plan is 11 games at the Garden. All Big East home games and two significant non-conference games.

While it sounds great, I don't see myself going into Manhatten on a train and dealing with all that commuting crap. I'm on long Island and driving to Jamaica is a pain in the daily 5 hour afternoon rush hour. 22 miles away. A lot of the St. John's fanbase is on Long Island. Would be nice if you worked in the city. I'd like to see a couple of non conference games at the Nassau coliseum.

I love it!!!

Living in Astoria, it's a lot easier for me to get to MSG than CA.

SJU1987 wrote:While it sounds great, I don't see myself going into Manhatten on a train and dealing with all that commuting crap. I'm on long Island and driving to Jamaica is a pain in the daily 5 hour afternoon rush hour. 22 miles away. A lot of the St. John's fanbase is on Long Island. Would be nice if you worked in the city. I'd like to see a couple of non conference games at the Nassau coliseum.

More of the alumni base don't live in LI and MSG is way easier to get to than Carnesecca.

NJRedman wrote:

SJU1987 wrote:While it sounds great, I don't see myself going into Manhatten on a train and dealing with all that commuting crap. I'm on long Island and driving to Jamaica is a pain in the daily 5 hour afternoon rush hour. 22 miles away. A lot of the St. John's fanbase is on Long Island. Would be nice if you worked in the city. I'd like to see a couple of non conference games at the Nassau coliseum.

More of the alumni base don't live in LI and MSG is way easier to get to than Carnesecca.

Yeah NJ has always had a big Johnnies fanbase. I live right across the river north of Hoboken so I take the bus into Port Authority, the train to MSG or drive.

It’s about time that St. John’s is leaving that inaccessible bandbox in Queens. History aside there is no reason for a Big East program to be playing there.

What a huge piece of news, and great news at that for SJ. The relationship that SJ/BE has with MSG is clearly strong and growing more over time. With all of the momentum that SJ has now, they are clearly raising the profile of their program (and school) by playing in a larger arena to satisfy the demands. SJ is really looking to become NY's team (which is ironic, since another NE-based program actually markets itself as NY's 6th borough).

Congrats, Johnnies!

MSG must be the most expensive basketball venue in the country... can they afford it? I wouldn't even be surprised if the league is helping out a little. It'll look great for the conference on TV, and obviously a recruiting pitch no other team can make.

kayako wrote:MSG must be the most expensive basketball venue in the country... can they afford it? I wouldn't even be surprised if the league is helping out a little. It'll look great for the conference on TV, and obviously a recruiting pitch no other team can make.

I wondered that as well or if in Val’s negotiations maybe MSG leveraged saying they needed more dates filled by St Johns?