"And he kept asking me 'are you getting what you want?' Every time we talked. Fortunately, I was able to tell Dale 'Yes. We have yet to hit a road block. We have exactly what we asked for in this room. At no point did we cut any corners.' His influence on those two things were a big part of this."

From a basketball standpoint, the advantages are pretty clear. The men's basketball team used to set up folding chairs or use the McLeod Center bleachers to watch game film on a grainy projector screen. That is now replaced by an 80-inch high definition LCD.

Accordingly, UNI certainly has something to show off to potential student-athletes and has perhaps set the bar as far as the Missouri Valley Conference is concerned.

"Compared to a number of other facilities, even around the MVC we were a little bit behind the times," said Steve Gearhart, the senior associate athletic director for athletic affairs. "This has really enhanced everything and we haven't seen nicer facilities in the Valley."

The bells and whistles are hard to ignore, but the biggest advantage may be the increase in square footage. The men's basketball project rearranged the old setup, knocked down a few walls and took over what used to be storage rooms.