Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long has made no secret of his desire to construct a basketball practice facility. Football tops the list of facilities master planning, but basketball has been prominently mentioned as a project for the future.

Could Mike Anderson’s hire conceivably speed up the timetable?

Anderson, introduced Saturday as coach, figures to be able to sell fans on basketball again with his personality and coaching style. An improved product will likely make fundraising easier for the project.

No price tag has been attached to a practice facility yet — it’s too early in the process — but we got a glimpse of something Long liked this time last year. Long used social networking site Twitter to send followers a link to Colorado’s new facility, a 35,000-SF structure that cost $10.5 million to build.

Long said on Saturday he had not promised Anderson a practice facility when pitching the Razorback job. However, upgrading the amenities available to basketball did come up in conversation. Long said he and Anderson feel Arkansas is “behind in the SEC” and improvements are something they want to see “become a reality.”

Arkansas needs more to compete for recruits than the 19,200-seat Bud Walton Arena. It's seen as one of the nicest on-campus venues in college basketball, but even with recent upgrades the Razorbacks are no longer on the cutting edge.

“We are going to work on that very soon,” Long said. “We are going to finish our football project, which is going very well, and then we will turn our thoughts to our basketball practice facility because it is needed.

“That combination of a beautiful Bud Walton Arena with 19,000 or 20,000 and that basketball practice facility will really give us a chance to recruit at a high, high level.”

Football remains the No. 1 priority for the Razorbacks’ facilities upgrade plan. A new football operations center is in the works and efforts are ongoing to raise funds for the 80,000-SF facility that could cost up to $24-35 million.

Other items in the master plan include a combination indoor track/baseball facility. Some projects could take decades to plan and complete, but Long is actively working to put together an outline for the future in other sports.