In the pantheon of misplaced outrage, UConn fans have retired the trophy in recent days, choosing to panic over the basketball team's lemon against St. Joseph's and not the scourge that poses a more universal menace to the athletic program:

The ghastly number of empty seats at Gampel Pavilion.

UConn announced the crowd at 4,081, which, if accepted as true, means there were 6,086 seats with derrieres unaffixed to them. This is lame for a fanbase that garishly trumpets its loyalty all over Twitter, but positively pathetic given the new direction of the athletic department.

We all know by now that UConn's hierarchy, from the Board of Trustees southward, spurned football in favor of a return to the Big East, thus hitching the wagons to basketball. The hyperventilating was pervasive from the day of the announcement that, loosely translated, went like this:

The Big East.

The Big East!

THE BIG EAST!!!!

Yes, this is the elixir. The fans would come back to the familiar. Football is a failing concept. Practice enough benign neglect and it goes away. Then we get back to our roots: hoops.

Except that Wednesday night offered little proof that, as the analytics geeks like to say, fan interest is truly trending upward. Oh, don't worry: Gampel will be rocking for Sunday's game with No. 15 Florida, prompting the dullards to either ignore or pooh pooh Wednesday night's apathy. They won't even realize that by showing up Sunday and not Wednesday reinforces the fanbase's fraudulence: They come for name brands only. They'll show up for the event, not their team.

But if UConn athletics is to succeed under this new paradigm, there cannot be 6,086 empty seats for basketball any longer. Basketball is the show now. UConn has given the fans what they want: THE BIG EAST!! Now it's time for the fans to show up consistently.

True enough, St. Joseph is a program in disrepair after dismissing iconic coach Phil Martelli. But it's still a program with some history tethered to UConn, lest we forget the classic first-round tournament game in 2014 when Amida Brimah saved the whole season.

UConn didn't play Popcorn State on Wednesday. It played an Atlantic 10 school with some history. The savvy basketball fans they purport to be in this state ought to have known that. I mean, there were fewer fans at Gampel on Wednesday night than for High Point at Boston College.

Let me just say this: When you get draw fewer fans than BC in basketball — ever — it's time to stack the chairs, hang the sheets on the chandeliers and hose down the fire.

Fan apathy was not a popular sentiment on Twitter during the day Thursday. The typical prattle. I get it. Many loyal UConn fans take to social media to, among other things, prove their devotion. They're trying to protect the school they love. And so we toss a few snowballs at each other and move on.

But here is where I get off the train: I don't believe UConn's entry into the Big East will move the attendance/interest needle to the required levels. No argument that Villanova, Providence and Georgetown will be events, not games. But if you think Creighton, Butler, Xavier and Marquette on a Tuesday night in January will draw a more appreciable number of fans than Tulsa, Tulane, East Carolina and South Florida, prepare for some disappointment.

Hope I'm wrong. But it's not the same Big East. And UConn fans showed their colors Wednesday night.

The outcome of the St. Joe's game? Irrelevant in the big picture. This is but Year Two for Dan Hurley. I agree with a friend of mine, a true, blue UConn fan, who thinks the winning won't be consistent again here until all of Kevin Ollie's players graduate. Hence, there will be nights like Wednesday, as unseemly as it looked.

But until people start showing up to the games — and not merely the events — this is an athletic department that should be afraid. Very, very afraid. Because I don't trust UConn fans. They talk more than they walk.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro