If the basement is an option for night time, fantastic. However, during the day time he'll still need to escape the elements!
Are you driving to your new home? If not, then you shouldn't have bought a midwest anyway.
Midwest crates (as you must know) are not airline approved. The reason I say to go w/ the plastic crate is because A: he won't have cold bars to lay up against and B: On the days that it does warm up enough for the snow to melt it's bound to be muddy somewhere and this boy is gonna find it! So you'll need something that you can easily take apart and hose off.