My personal read of the tea leaves. Family & friends for life in upstate NY means something. Again, Im a lifelong SU fan, not an insider. I let my enthusiasm guide my rhetoric occasionally!
The way I look at it, Joe has a bunch of attractive options.
All the schools are very good academically. Syracuse, Duke, BC and Notre Dame are in the best league for college basketball there is. Penn State and Michigan are in the B1G, which is a good league with some solid programs.
Based on recent history, his best chance to win a NC is at Duke. He might have a friend on the team from day 1 in Isaiah Stewart. The negatives there are 1) with the quality of the players Duke recruits, he might not be good enough to play there. He would almost surely have to wait to get playing time and it might never come. 2) Coach K might retire before Joe is done. Who knows who the new coach will be? 3) distance.
He can play right away at Penn State and BC, and probably start immediately. The coaches are relatively young and will probably be there his entire college career. He won't win a conference championship, he won't play on a ranked team and he might never play in the NCAA tournament. He definitely won't have a chance to play on an NC team at those places. But they are relatively close and he can be the man, like he is used to, most or all of his college career.
At ND, he will have a chance to win more games. He will likely play in the NCAA tournament, and he will probably play on ranked teams too. I don't think Mike Brey is going anywhere, except maybe to Duke if Coach K decides he has had enough. It would be a long shot to play in the Final Four but he would have a chance. Probably would have to wait his turn to get some playing time, like a lot of players there do. The biggest negative is distance.
At Michigan, he again would be part of a winning program, will probably play on ranked teams most of the time he is there and might have a chance to play for an NC. Their style of play on offense fit him. He probably won't play much immediately but should thrive in that system. The HC has ties to the family. But the school is in the B1G, rarely plays close to Glens Falls and is unfortunately located really far away, so home games would be really tough for family and friends to get to.
Syracuse seems to have the most positives. But maybe I am not as objective as I could be.