I was at UConn 2008-2012. Fan-wise, I've seen the good (while Donald Brown was around, FF with Hash) and the bad (recent football and basketball). I thought about this at the bar today. There are many factors that go in to our poor fan showing.
In general, we play way too many games off-campus, and dorm cable makes it reeeeeeally easy to chill in your room and get drunk there and not worry about a ride, paying for parking, tailgating, getting caught doing whatever you do, bad weather, etc. There isn't any way to tailgate for the XL games; it's drink as much before/on the bus as you can. Not to mention there aren't many buses that go there. Getting rides is hard because you can't have a car until you have 54 credits.
With basketball, the student sections are awful. I don't need to go in to this one.
The lottery system is a joke. The best way to not get freshmen in to UConn basketball is to make it nearly impossible for them to get tickets without shelling out. A lot of people at UConn are douchey as hell and just keep the tickets to sell
Our teams have not been great these last couple years. Nothing kills interest worse or faster than losing. And we've been losing to some bad teams lately. Our fan base is used to winning. I'm not saying that excuses them from showing up and supporting if they got the tickets, but it is what it is. Unfortunately, our fan base is not comprised completely of 'yarders.
In the end, it's all about students. They set the tone, and they make the atmosphere. Our players don't feed off of grampy and grammie sitting quietly eating their pretzels. They feed off the kids in the front row beating on the endzone padding during kickoffs. Pitt doesn't take down ranked teams at Peterson because a lot of people came from off campus. And the students are the ones who keep UConn pride strong and ongoing. I don't think they deserve to drive their broke asses 30 minutes in to Hartford and back half the time they want to see their team play.