Sounds familiar. <ramble time>
Just say the word and.. it shall be built. If fundraising efforts don't result in anything substantial... just explain things a different way and magically you've "funded" a project(s).
In the case of a basketball practice facility at Minnesota I think it's the right way to go.
I do wonder what the holdup has been with the master facilities plan. It should be a living, breathing document and almost all of them do change over time... when I look at past comments from the U about specific timing.. "oh it should be done in January; oh, we expect it to be done by early April; by June, etc"... don't understand why you'd want to provide expectations like that, especially when they don't materialize. "We're working diligently, we want to do it well, and we'll let you know when we're ready to share." might have been a better route...
Nonetheless... maybe the plan has gotten more complex than expected.. maybe the consultants have been delayed due to the U's people having other commitments... maybe a big donation(s) are/were believed to be very close and an announcement/unveiling was delayed for that purpose... maybe there's been tremendous infighting re: using current revenue streams to "fund" certain projects... don't know.
But if you look at the timeline of comments coming from the U - especially Teague - the fact that we're in July without a plan (again, a plan that should be expected to be monitored and revised on a continual/periodic basis)... it's a bit strange.
If they can't find big donors - and that's certainly likely - then I think you just come clean and attack the more pressing need through another means (i.e., "allocate" existing revenue streams).