Manhattan or Queens? Debate continues between St. John's fans

By: Troy Mauriello

They say “home is where the heart is,” but for the St. John’s Red Storm men’s basketball team, does that home lie under the bright lights of Manhattan, or the old-school feel of Queens?

The Red Storm, like many other teams in the country, split their home games between two arenas: Madison Square Garden (MSG) in Manhattan, and Carnesecca Arena, their on-campus facility in Queens. Since the Big East re-aligned in 2013, St. John’s has played anywhere from five to eight home games per season at Madison Square Garden, most of them against conference opponents.

Games against higher-profile conference opponents - such as Villanova, Georgetown and Seton Hall - are nearly always played at The Garden, while games against the rest of the conference - Marquette, Xavier, Butler, DePaul, Providence and Creighton - are usually up in the air as to where their location will be.

It’s an intricate scheduling process, and one that has caused a good deal of debate between Red Storm fans over the last year as the Johnnies enter a new era under head coach Mike Anderson.

Some fans feel as though St. John’s only secures a real “home-court advantage” when they play in Carnesecca Arena, a 5,600-seat venue usually filled with primarily Red Storm supporters. Others argue the history and aura of Madison Square Garden cannot be ignored, even if St. John’s sacrifices some home-court advantage in the process of playing there.

The thing is, both sides of the argument are correct.

For now, it seems like St. John’s will be playing more Big East home games at Carnesecca Arena next season than they have in years past. The Johnnies played just three conference games in Queens last season, but the results were more than positive - a narrow loss vs No. 11 Butler in December, an upset over Providence in February and a stunning 20-point blowout of No. 10 Creighton in March.

Athletic Director Mike Cragg noted that a “re-calibration” of where the fan base is currently at will be the driving factor in a decision to shift to Queens.

“We were kind of re-calibrating that home court advantage and where we are as a program and where our fanbase is in supporting going to an 18,000 seat arena as compared to staying in Queens,” Cragg said.

“Obviously Madison Square Garden is extremely important for our program, for the brand, for the Big East, so we would never change that. But where we are, it was very clear we were not at a stage to be able to draw 15,000-plus every night, and that’s when it becomes an advantage.”

Cragg’s comments are rather telling in regards to where the Johnnies are at as a program currently. Despite being one of the more historic programs in all of college basketball, fan interest is simply not incredibly high for a St. John’s team that hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game in two decades.

That means games against opponents like DePaul and Marquette won’t draw much of a crowd in Manhattan. Those games, both played on Saturday’s at The Garden this past season, did not top 8,000 fans: Meaning the nearly 20,000-plus seat MSG wasn’t even close to halfway full.

Games against old-school Big East rivals like Villanova and Georgetown will do better at MSG, but even against those opponents the Red Storm barely drew 10,000 fans this season. On top of that, a decent chunk of those fans are supporting the “road” team, making the venue feel like more of a middle ground instead of a St. John’s home game.

“Games at The Garden will have at best a slight majority for the home team, making it essentially a neutral-site game, if not just an away game billed as a home game,” said Brendan Eugene, a St. John’s alumni and season ticket holder.

“If you have only three MSG games, they become bigger deals and maybe more St. John’s fans would go,” said Frank Lengetti, another season ticket holder. “There’s more of a ‘home-court’ advantage [at Carnesecca] as less opposing team’s fans will travel to Queens than they would travel to MSG.”

Could St. John’s even consider moving games against high-profile opponents back “home” to Queens as well? Cragg, citing the ever-changing world during the coronavirus pandemic, didn’t rule anything out.

“Everything is on the table,” Cragg said. “We’re just in a very unique time in our country and in this city in particular, so you cannot go with any assumptions. And so it doesn’t mean that we’re going to change, but it means that we have to be prepared at some point soon to be able to pull the switch.”

On the other hand, the importance of Madison Square Garden for the St. John’s program cannot be understated. Like most other New York teams, when the Johnnies are winning, the building is full.

Take the 2018-19 team for example. The Johnnies, with Chris Mullin at the helm, opened 12-0 and at one point were ranked No. 24 in the nation. That season, they reached 16,000-plus fans at The Garden on four separate occasions. A sold-out MSG crowd played a major factor in a February 2019 win over Villanova, in which the Red Storm erased a 17-point deficit to all-but clinch an NCAA Tournament bid.

“It was as loud as I can remember, maybe louder,” then-head coach Chris Mullin told reporters after the game. “There are some great places to play college basketball, but when you get a full Madison Square Garden against a championship team like Villanova there's nothing like that.”

Rival coaches know the impact that The Garden’s crowd can have for the Red Storm as well.

“[The Garden] is what makes St. John’s, St. John’s. So, I don’t think you can ever ignore the importance of the Mecca for St. John’s,” Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard told the NY Post in March.

One final impact that Madison Square Garden has for St. John’s comes on the recruiting scene. While the atmosphere at Carnesecca Arena cannot be denied, recruits are being sold on playing their home games in “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” not at a 5,600-seat outdated venue in Queens.

Recent tweets by Class of 2020 St. John’s commits confirm that line of thinking. Posh Alexander, a 2020 three-star guard from the Bronx, and Isaih Moore, a highly-rated junior college player, both tweeted the exact same message within hours of each other earlier this week.

That message: “Really gone be in Madison Square Garden.”

Whether you prefer the aura of The Garden or the home-court advantage of Carnesecca, it’s clear next season will be far from usual; not only for St. John’s, but throughout college sports.

“This coming year could be a very unique one - not could be, it will be a very unique one,” Cragg said. “And so we have to be very conscious of that, for safety and health, so we’ll play that by ear.”