St. Joe's has made a solid financial commitment to improve their facilities, but it is a small school (not unlike Butler) with a rabid fan base. While the BB arena is relatively small, it is right-sized for the school and it isn't substandard like Rose Hill or the GW and
LaSalle facilities. If
Fordham can get an arrangement with the Barclay Center, similar to what St. John's has with the Garden, they should be alright as far as having a state-of-the-art arena goes. While the GW facility is also problematic, neither they nor Rhoddy or
UMass (which seem to have adequate facilities) seem to be able to attract much enthusiasm from their fan base. I don't know what the answer is for some of these A-10 East Coast programs (excepting St. Joe's)...maybe they just aren't meccas of BB. Recall, that the A-10 had to move the Conference playoffs out of Philly because, notwithstanding the fact that three schools were situated there and GW and Fordham were only a short train ride away, they couldn't fill half of the arena? That isn't conducive to getting Conference playoffs on National TV or landing lucrative broadcast rights. Hopefully with the additions of Butler and VCU and more A-10 alumni in the NYC area, attendance will improve for the A-10 Conference playoffs, but if not, the A-10 should move it back to the Midwest where there are true College BB fans.