Mike DePaoli was sitting courtside at the New York State Federation tournament years ago in Glens Falls. Christ the King and Long Island Lutheran were on the court, 14 Division I-bound players between them, and a few hundred people in the stands.

The Fordham assistant coach didn’t get it. Here were two premier New York City-area programs playing for a state championship in front of basically nobody.

“Why are we up here and not in New York City?” he asked Ray Nash, the president of the CHSAA’s Brooklyn/Queens Diocese at the time, who was seated next to him.

“Nobody spearheaded something to get it down there,” Nash responded.

Until now.

This March, for the first time since the Federation tournament began in 1979, it will be held downstate, at Fordham’s iconic Rose Hill gymnasium. Glens Falls, 200 miles north of the city, hosted the tournament from 1981 to 2010. It moved to Albany from 2011-16 and then back to Glens Falls. This past December, Fordham won the bid, over St. John’s and Glens Falls, to have the boys and girls basketball tournaments featuring 23 teams and three classifications.

“It’s long overdue,” said Christ the King coach Joe Arbitello, whose program has been a fixture in the state tournament. “A few years ago, we played Cardozo in the semifinal game in Glens Falls. There were 12 people in the stands. The following year, we played them at Christ the King. We had to close the gym [it was so full].

“It will be a big improvement. You’re in front of your fans, in New York City. That will be a big difference. If any of the New York city teams are playing against each other, they’ll sell out.”

Attendance was a leading factor in the change. As part of the proposal to the New York State Federation of Secondary School Athletic Associations, distances of recent state tournament schools to Fordham were presented. In 2018, 16 of 23 were within 30 miles. The year before, that number was 18. It was 16 in 2016, 14 in 2015 and 15 in 2014. It will also save money, since so many of the schools won’t have to stay in hotels. Teams can eat and practice on campus at Fordham, and those coming from upstate will stay at Westchester hotels close to the college.

“Most of the teams were from this region and it was just time,” Federation president Don Buckley said. “Everybody was excited. We assume the attendance will be significantly larger.

“Everybody felt it was time to move it downstate. Fordham and St. John’s both wanted it very, very much, and that’s important. If you don’t want it [that much], you can’t have a tournament of that stature.”

There was always talk about moving the tournament in the past, but it never advanced beyond idle chatter. Then DePaoli came along.

He was the one who pushed the idea to Fordham’s administration, who worked with both the city’s Public and Catholic leagues to all come together and make a bid. The process began three years before the actual bid was presented. It included meetings on top of meetings, getting everyone on board with one plan in mind, setting up volunteers, advertisers and fundraising ventures.

“Mike DePaoli, that’s what happened. He was a workhorse,” Arbitello said. “He’s the guy that made it happen. Anybody I talk to says it was Mike that got it done.”

It will be good for Fordham, too. The school will host campus admission tours for anyone interested in attendance.

It will also serve as a recruiting tool for the basketball teams. DePaoli always says the toughest part of his job is getting kids on campus, which he described as “an oasis in The Bronx.”

Once they’re there, it gets easier to recruit them.

More than anything, he wanted to bring the tournament to the city for the growth of the prep game.

“The big picture, and I really mean this — people might roll their eyes — but the biggest reason is kids in the greater New York City area deserve this,” said DePaoli, a Westchester native who went to North Salem High School. “I get to know these kids. Some of the coaches are my friends. To watch them go upstate and play in front of 300 people is just so anticlimactic. It should be 3,000 people packed in a gym with all the New York City hoops junkies in there, embracing the best of our state right here.”

This March, it will be.