LEXINGTON, Ky. — Get on out of here with your gloom and doom about how the game just isn’t what it used to be.

In the end, college basketball always delivers.

Surely this past weekend was proof, with its incessant nail-biting Final Four, starting with Florida’s 79-73 upset of overall No. 1 seed Auburn, then Houston’s furious rally to shock Duke, 70-67, capped by the Monday night magic that was Florida’s white-knuckle 65-63 victory over Houston in the NCAA championship game.

Did you know that CBS reported that 18.1 million viewers watched the championship game, the most since 2019? Did you know that Final Four weekend averaged 16.4 million viewers, the most since 2017?

Think the sport is dead? Don’t tell that to the 66,602 who packed the Alamodome on Saturday, or the hordes of Houston fans who made the three-hour trek from their home city to flood San Antonio in support of their Cougars or the Florida fans who flocked to the Southwest to celebrate the Gators’ resurgence.

I know. I was there. You could hardly move on the narrow pathways of the city’s River Walk on the San Antonio River, a stretch of shops and restaurants that overflowed with fans from the four schools, and whose existence makes this still the best site for the Final Four. (Sorry, Indianapolis, you’re a close second.)

And having witnessed a historic season of SEC basketball and three weekends of the NCAA Tournament, I am proud to report the level of play has rarely been better.

Thanks to NIL, plus that extra COVID year, college basketball players are older now. And thank goodness for that. You see fewer ragged, mistake-filled, head-slapping, difficult-to-watch games now. Surely the Final Four solidified that notion.

Did you know that the team leading at the final media timeout lost all three Final Four games? (Hat tip to David Teel.)

Did you know that not a single freshman played in the national championship game for the first time since 1989? (Hat tip to Jared Berson.)

Did you know that Florida’s top scorer on the top team, Walter Clayton Jr., was considered a better football than basketball prospect coming out of high school and was only awarded a college scholarship after then Iona coach Rick Pitino saw video of Clayton and said that the guard was fat, slow and couldn’t shoot but “I like the way he passes the ball.”

Who knows what will happen off the court. As Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said last week when asked about the state of the sport, “It’s changing day by day. You think something one day and it changes the next. I honestly can’t tell you what’s going to happen.”

Yes, the transfer portal is chaotic and often confusing, but this day and age you better be able to master its domain. All but one of Florida’s starting five began their college careers elsewhere. Todd Golden wore the net around his neck on Monday night because the 39-year-old Gators coach picked the right players — not necessarily the most talented — for his system.

Did you know there was not a single five-star recruit in Monday’s title game?

Has Florida surpassed Kentucky as the flagship basketball program of the SEC? Perhaps in results. Golden proved the Gators can win titles beyond Billy Donovan. But Kentucky still tops the Gators, and every other conference school, in its undying passion for the sport. That hasn’t changed.

The gap isn’t as wide as it once was, however. The rise of SEC basketball correlates with the rise in the number of conference and school officials who have recognized its importance and potential.

There were 14 SEC teams in this tournament; seven SEC teams in the Sweet 16; four SEC teams in the Elite Eight; two SEC teams in the Final Four and one SEC team that was standing on the podium in the middle of the court accepting the national championship trophy.

Kudos to Florida’s Scott Stricklin, the athletic director who hired the rising star that is Golden. (He’s also a good guy.) And Stricklin is a former Mitch Barnhart assistant AD at Kentucky, just as was Alabama AD Greg Byrne, who hired Nate Oats, the coach who took Alabama to the Final Four last season. (Greg is a good guy, too.)

And, especially this season, kudos to college basketball.

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