A basketball fan's guide to Boise, Idaho

For college basketball fans throughout the state of Wisconsin, the center of the universe -- at least this week -- is Boise, Idaho.

We can only hope they have a lot of Miller products in stock ...

Marquette and Wisconsin open NCAA Tournament play Friday at Taco Bell Arena on the campus of Boise State University. The Golden Eagles face Utah State at 11:30 a.m. Wisconsin takes on Florida State at about 6:20 p.m.

As a service to fans making the trip west -- or those who are curious -- we offer the following facts about Idaho's capital city:

Located "along the river where the desert meets the Rocky Mountains," Boise is considered one of America's most livable cities.

• The population is 211,000.
• The climate is surprisingly mild. The city sees an average of 12 inches of rain and snow per year and moderate temperatures and low humidity make it popular with sports enthusiasts who like golf, hiking, mountain biking, skiing or snowboarding.
• Boise is approximately 41 miles east of the Oregon border, and 110 miles north of the Nevada border.
• Downtown Boise sits at an elevation of 2,704 feet above sea level.
• Accounts differ as to how the city was named. Some credit a story told of Captain B.L.E. Bonneville of the U.S. Army as the source of the name. After trekking for weeks through dry and rough terrain, his exploration party reached an overlook with a view of the Boise River Valley. The place where they stood is called Bonneville Point, and is located on the Oregon Trail east of the city. According to the story, a French-speaking guide, overwhelmed by the sight of the verdant river, yelled "Les bois! Les bois!" giving the area the name.
• Boise is the headquarters for several major companies, such as URS Corp. Washington Division (formerly Washington Group International, formerly Morrison-Knudsen), Boise Cascade LLC, New Albertsons Inc., Albertsons LLC, J.R. Simplot Company, Idaho Pacific Lumber Company, Idaho Timber Corporation, WinCo Foods and Hewlett Packard's printer division. The area's largest private employer publicly traded and headquartered company in Boise is Micron Technology.
• Technology investment and the high-tech industry have become increasingly important to the city, with businesses including Bodybuilding.com, Crucial.com, MobileDataForce, MarkMonitor, Sybase, Kayako, Balihoo.com and Microsoft.
• Boise has a Basque community of about 15,000, placing it second behind Bakersfield, Calif., in the U.S. and fourth in the world outside Argentina, Venezuela and the Basque Country in Spain and France.
• Boise will host the Winter 2009 Special Olympics World Games. More than 2,500 athletes from over 85 countries will participate.
• Famous residents of Boise include Joe Albertson, founder of Albertson's grocery chain; NFL quarterback Jake Plummer, jazz musician Gene Harris, model / wrestler Torrie Wilson, actor William Petersen of "CSI" fame, jockey Gary Stevens, baseball player Bill Buckner and Brett Nelson, bass player in the band Built to Spill.
• Boise has two daily newspapers -- The Idaho Statesman and the Idaho Press-Tribune.
• Sports fans can follow the Boise Hawks of the Northwest league, the Idaho Steelheads of the East Coast Hockey League and the Idaho Stampede of the NBA "D-League."
• The Boise State University campus is home to Velma V. Morrison Center for the Performing Arts, which hosts local and national fine arts performances; Bronco Stadium, the 32,000-seat football stadium known for its blue Field Turf field; and Taco Bell Arena, a 12,000-seat basketball and entertainment venue which opened in 1982 as the BSU Pavilion. Boise State University is known primarily for the recent successes of its football team, although it is also a fairly well regarded commuter school for undergraduate students.