My gut feel is that we need about 5 solid years of high level success in basketball (including maybe 3 NCAA appearances) to solidify the support that you already see this year. That kind of sustained success will enable us to not lose too much of the support if we have a down year or two. Always have fair weather fans of course, but at least then we will be at a point that we can half fill the arena even in bad years without requiring rich alumni to buy a bunch of tickets and give them away.
Year 1 is complete, regardless of the outcome in New York. 4 more years...
Everyone on here who talks about losing 1-2 generations of fans is right. Sad, but true. That's why we need several years to really create some longer-term fans since we're starting with almost zero (minus the people on this board and other committed alumni).