Kansas City, Mo. ? With CBS announcer Billy Packer tossing out trivia questions about basketball founder James Naismith, and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski suggesting that one interactive attraction might be instructive for sports writers, organizers of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame unveiled details of the $20 million project Thursday.

“It is our purpose and hope to immerse every visitor into college basketball,” Jim Haney, the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, said at a luncheon emceed by Packer. “The Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame is an element of that … but this is not going to be just some staid, reverent place for remembering the coaches, players, contributors and teams who made college basketball what it is today.”

The hall itself will take up only about a quarter of the 40,000-square-foot facility, dubbed “College Basketball the Experience,” which is to be incorporated into Kansas City’s new downtown arena. The Sprint Center, now under construction and set to open in 2007, will share lobby space with the college hoops shrine.

The NABC, based in Kansas City, backed the downtown arena plan and plans to move its headquarters into the Sprint Center.

Once College Basketball the Experience is complete, exhibits honoring college basketball’s greats will be on the first floor. On the second floor, visitors will find multimedia exhibits designed to recreate the atmosphere of the college game – by putting them into the middle of the action.

“You’ll put yourself in those positions – where there’s a crowd, what a coach says, what a player does, how to dribble and hit that shot,” Krzyzewski said at a news conference.

Krzyzewski, who is president of the NABC Foundation, seemed particularly taken with an attraction designed – hostile crowd noise and all – to simulate shooting free throws late in a close game.

“I would like to recommend that for the next writers’ convention, we have it here in Kansas City – and every basketball writer goes up and shoots one of those free throws with all of that around him,” he said. “And I want to know what percentage was hit, and how many air balls were shot, so you’ll have a greater empathy for the people who are doing it.”