Idaho - "Movin' On Up" - Trying Anyway

[IdaGriz01]

University of Idaho is now making a big push to finance a new facility for basketball and volleyball ... the "Idaho Arena."

They've got a ways to go (years away, I would imagine), but they do seem serious:
http://www.uidaho.edu/giving/athletics/idaho-arena/arena-story

In the print version of a similar release (published in Here We Have Idaho), they quoted a former player who said:

Having played basketball in Memorial Gym, I learned firsthand, while sitting on the bench, what "home court advantage" really means. The Vandals have not had that advantage since moving to the Kibbie Dome over 40 years ago. The new arena provides an opportunity for a winning environment ...

Home court advantage or no ... I'll bet visiting teams will be glad to play in a real Bball venue (when/if it finally happens). :lol:

 

[citygriz]

Never thought I'd say it but....poor Idaho.

Imagine that in 1974, Eastern Montana suddenly got major funding. Next they're in the Big Sky conference. Next they've moved up to the WAC. Next they're on national TV, beating Oklahoma in one of the most exciting, entertaining games in college football history. Now Eastern Montana has a national football brand. Now neither the University of Montana or Montana State University is the major school in Montana. Eastern is. How demoralizing that would be to Griz fans.

Yet that's what's happened to Idaho. And their efforts to keep up, to appear "big league," just come off as pathetic.

Thus they describe their new gym as "modern." "A priority for students."

(But how big is it?)

"Has brought donors out of the woodwork." (Though funding is still $15 million short.)

(Yeah, but how big?)

Will embody "thousands of years of construction technology," and be a "beautiful sustainable structure."

(Okay, how big?)

Oh, here we go. Buried deep in the story, almost the last paragraph...

4700!

You could fit nearly three of these within the Boise State basketball arena.

It's actually closer in size to the Helena High School gym.

It's now clear, Idaho should never have tried to move up. They abandoned their natural regional rivalries in favor of the ULM Warhawks and the UL Lafayette Rajin Cajuns.

They became the Syrian refugees of college football. Nobody wants them.

The pride of Idaho alums goeth before a fall.

 

[putter]

With the article that Haslam was quoted in regarding the "resurgence" of the WAC, I wonder if Idaho is moving to the Big Sky hoping to bridge the gap if/when this happens. Hoping that the top of the Big Sky will be the driving force for doing this?