Lots of reasons for college basketball’s decline - I’ll add one to the list. Basketball is an up-close-and-personal sport. You get to know players well when you watch. It’s a star sport. You can love/hate MJ because you know him. The one-and-done thing has made it very hard to get to know college basketball stars enough to care about them.
Who are the huge college basketball stars of the past 5 years? Zion Williamson is the only one who really grabbed the attention of the nation. It wasn’t that long ago that we had people loving/hating Adam Morrison/JJ Reddick/Tyler Hansborough/etc.
Football, on the other hand, is as impersonal as a major sport gets. We root for the jersey and often never get to know who is wearing it.
The students used to camp outside the ticket office to get tickets to games. Coaches would bring pizza/donuts. The students used to be crazy about Ute basketball.
Really wish hoops would do what baseball does where a high schooler can opt for the draft and then make their way up through the minor leagues hoping to make it to “The Show” or go the college route in which case they need to play a few years (is it 2 or 3?) before they can enter the draft.