The antenna pattern is pretty much spherical, but the design of the rest of the device makes it much less so. There is significant shielding within the device to protect the processing hardware, but this also distorts the antenna pattern.
One suggestion is to mount your base station vertically on a wall. They come with a mounting plate to facilitate this, though you can test it out by just propping it up temporarily to see if your basement is covered.
Another thing to keep in mind is the eventual replacement of your graphite base station if and when it dies. You don't need an Apple product to do wireless networking; any 802.11b-standard device will do. Look for one with dual external antennas, and of course shop carefully. Reviews are usually good research, but be careful of making decisions based on negative reviews-if all there is to look at is negative, there's something going on, but not necessarily bad hardware...
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