When was the Joan built? When was our greatest football era?
When was the Cam built? When was our greatest basketball era?
I understand what you are saying, but the 2 things are not separate.
First off, I agree with your main point about the need for facilities. It is more than ridiculous that we are now behind several of the MAC schools (e.g. Central Michigan's IPF and Akron) in terms of facilities when we were so far ahead of them.
However, I don't think "our greatest basketball era" was the 1980s. While those were exciting times going to Asheville, it only amounted to three first round losses in the NCAA Tournament: '84 loss to Villanova, 85 loss to VCU, andthe 87 loss to TCU.
I think a better era was the Elliss Johnson and Carl Tacy teams of the late 60s and early 70s, and those games were played at the field house. Johnsonlead us to the final four of the NIT, when the NIT was the main tournament. Tacy lead us to a a No. 12 ranking. With that being said, I haven't even dug back into the Cam Henderson era stats.