"Attendance was better." That means the attendance number was higher in previous years. Nothing more to read into it. As for your other question about attendance and support, yes, I do believe your supposition. Yes, Creighton has great support when it comes to fans showing up at the arena. There's no way to argue that it doesn't. And yes, a small venue can hurt Duke, but hey! Duke isn't selling out the arena these days like they used to, so I'm not sure there's an argument there. Of course, UConn can sell out the arena for the big games too, but for the smaller games? It's like Duke. So: great for Pitt, great for Creighton. Of course, there are other factors, like ticket prices, donations for seats, freebies (heck, Rutgers gives 40% of tix in freebies), etc. But as for attendance, the numbers are what they are. Hard to argue against them.
These are not the only factors of support. There's donations, there's TV ratings, licensing, etc. Hey, there are other sports which might be considered to support the ADs revenues--that too counts.
Of course I agree that attendance, revenue, TV ratings, licensing, donations, all of it should be compared.