If GSR Arena is built, Nevada basketball dreaming big. Final Four big

Nevada Sports Net columnist Chris Murray is known to be a bit wordy, so we’re giving him 1,000 words (but no more than that) every Friday to share his thoughts from the week that was in the world of sports.

* STEVE ALFORD APPROACHED the podium where Alex Meruelo was standing inside Lawlor Events Center this week to add his thoughts on the proposed Grand Sierra Resort Arena where his Nevada basketball team would play. Alford said the Wolf Pack needed the facility “desperately,” adding it was a case of survival for Nevada athletics as it tries to keep up in the increasingly expensive game of college athletics. Alford said he’s been in constant conversation about the facility project with Meruelo, the GSR’s owner. “I’ve had a crazy amount of talks with him and he’s about undefeated, he’s about national championships; I love that,” Alford said as the 50 people in attendance laughed. “That’s all true,” Meruelo chimed in.

* THE EXPECTATIONS WEREN’T set quite so high by university president Brian Sandoval, who speaking a couple minute earlier, said the Final Four was a goal, perhaps half-jokingly. Obviously, this trio, plus the others who spoke, were selling the vision and the potential. They had to aim high painting that vision. Nevada basketball has had great teams before but never gotten past the Sweet 16, the level it reached in 2004 and again in 2018. Since Alford took over six years ago, the Wolf Pack has twice reached the NCAA Tournament but not advanced, March being a painful month for Nevada fans during his tenure thus far. Could a new state-of-the-art $435 million arena change that?

* NEVADA MEN’S BASKETBALL has settled in as a good-but-not-championship-level Mountain West program post-Eric Musselman, going 113-75 overall and 61-48 in league under Alford with two 20-win seasons in six years. It’s harder now than ever before to win at the mid-major level with unprecedented transfers and unlimited name, image and likeness payments. If you have a great basketball player at a school like Nevada enjoy him for one season because that’s how long you’ll have him. Mid-major schools like Nevada need something that separates it. This arena, if built, could be a much needed spark for the program, which the Wolf Pack and this community have poured more money and emotional investment into than any other.

* THE DILEMMA — and there’s always a dilemma — is the public-money request. GSR Arena will only be built, the resort has said, if it gets $68 million in tax-increment financing toward phase one’s $786 million price tag (the arena alone is estimated at $435 million). That’s a 9 percent public subsidy of the total cost. That’s a reasonable ask when looking at the funding models of other arena/stadium builds in Nevada. Of course, Meruelo is a billionaire who a year ago this month sold his NHL team back to the league for $1 billion. Would I like to see him use that money to build this arena with no public money? Yes. Does it pencil out for Reno if he does get that TIF funding? Almost certainly. We’ll see if that handout is approved May 7.

* ASSUMING IT IS and the arena is built, Nevada basketball could become a West Coast juggernaut again like it was under Trent Johnson/Mark Fox and again under Musselman. And it’s not just because of the arena. Meruelo was one of the Wolf Pack’s early investors in NIL and remains so, helping to bankroll Nevada basketball’s player salaries (let’s be real, that’s what NIL is). If the team played on his property, that NIL money should only increase. He’d want a great team playing in a great arena and be wise to pay for such a team if he’s asking for undefeated national championship seasons. Imagine what could happen if he and a couple other boosters funded a $5 million-per-year roster. The Final Four doesn’t seem as outlandish.

* MERUELO SAID DURING that meeting with Wolf Pack boosters this week that basketball was his “first love,” and he did once try and buy the Atlanta Hawks before that deal fell apart, which has been the story of his life at the big-league professional level. With the Coyotes now sold, Meruelo could go all-in from a sports perspective on the Wolf Pack as well as his American Hockey League team, currently in Tucson and slated to move to Reno if GSR Arena is built. Meruelo could put his full sports focus, financially and emotionally, on the Wolf Pack. While I’m not saying that will happen, one big-time donor can push a program a far distance if so inclined.

* THIS IS WHY I’ve argued NIL is not a death sentence for college athletics or mid-majors. Fans of those schools are upset because they continually lose players. But don’t blame the players for wanting to maximize their market value. Blame the schools for not being able to produce the revenue to keep players. Schools that tap into that revenue can become really good, really fast. The dream, if you’re a Nevada basketball fan, is this arena is built and there’s a billionaire backer attached who will do what it takes and is incentivized to achieve a Final Four dream. Will this all happen? We don’t know. But the combination of the arena and an NIL benefactor is tantalizing.

* THE WOLF PACK’S who’s who was at this week’s gathering at Lawlor Events Center with athletic director Stephanie Rempe calling the arena a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Sandoval saying of the arena’s potential “this bus stops once” and Alford adding it would push the basketball program and university to another level. With Final Four dreams, this arena not being built would be a crushing blow to the Wolf Pack athletic department. Its construction wouldn’t guarantee anything in future competitiveness, but it not being built would be the same-old, same-old, and Nevada can’t afford that.

Columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at crmurray@sbgtv.com or follow him on Twitter @ByChrisMurray.