Attendance drops slightly in Division I college hoops

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — College basketball fans are still flocking to men's games by the millions.

They're just not setting records.

With 334 men's teams playing 5,251 games last season, both all-time highs, more than 27 million people attended Division I games — the fourth-highest total ever but a slight decrease from 2008-09.

Some of the numbers released by the NCAA on Wednesday looked familiar.

The top five home drawing cards were Kentucky, Syracuse, Louisville, Tennessee and North Carolina. The Wildcats had an average attendance of 24,111 at 18 home games in John Calipari's first season. Syracuse was next at 22,152 in 19 home games.

Either Kentucky or Syracuse has led the nation in home attendance for each of the past 34 seasons, but Kentucky has been No. 1 each of the past five seasons and 14 times in the last 15. Kentucky also led the nation in total attendance at home, road and neutral court games, playing 38 times in front of 724,145 fans.