First off, they have not been traditionally very good at basketball, so you are correct, they do not follow bb like fb. Secondly, I was there, the crowd of 1004, was pretty accurate, the side of the Holmes Convocation Center with the teams on it was pretty good, the opposite side was fairly empty.
The Holmes Center seats roughly 8,500. They do have some renewed excitement around the bb program due to the fact that they have a new coach that came from Davidson College. But they are not a traditional powerhouse in basketball and they need success to drive the program, so you are correct about that. Football on the other hand is a completely different story.
First day of class is next Monday, the 12th. So the students were not in class and that was noticable last night. Most of the fans were family, I saw very few students there. i would bet that with a decent season and students on campus, you could probably assume 2500 or so on Saturday nights.
Enrollment at App State is 18,026.