In all honesty, I think Maryland & Rutgers could be sleeping giants in football and basketball if they could only lock down a third of the top talent that comes from their home territory. I've heard and read that many of the old guard B1G fans aren't that excited about the two eastern schools being added from a competitive standpoint... Okay, that's fair. But I just wanted to put it out there that as far as potential for developing some monsters out east... we got some good ones. If you take a look at the talent that comes out of NoVA, DC, Baltimore, Philly, NYC from a Basketball perspective... off the charts!!! The ACC and old Big East (RIP) build IMO the best basketball leagues for the past 30 years with that talent base. Maryland is a lot closer to being elite than Rutgers in basketball and Rutgers probably needs a new arena before anyone will take them serious, but just from an availability of local talent... the location of these two to hoops is akin to what LA is for football talent for USC & UCLA.
Football talent is also bountiful in these areas. Penn State has built there program on the east coast. They cherry pick DC/MD/VA and Jersey like nobodies business. Now I'm not saying that overnight that'll change, but if you could get some good coaches that can recruit locally (what an idea)... they could turn those programs around.

The only thing that gives me pause is having to compete with NFL franchises. I can't prove it, but as a general observation I think that wherever the NFL is, college football doesn't thrive. Pittsburgh, Miami, SMU, Temple, Boston College, Minnesota, Northwestern, Maryland, Rutgers, Houston... all examples of college teams that regardless of history don't fill up a stadium like they should. They may even have very successful seasons but the rabidness of the fans seems to be lacking in terms of football.

To overcome the NFL handicap they both have huge alumni bases and will have big names coming to town but the key is to keep at least a third of your elite home talent at home!!!