I am considering putting a couple of plants in pots in the lawn.  Those plants will have to be protected in the winter in my climate if they are to grow well.  I do not have a suitable garage space for them but there can be room for two in my basement.  Bring the pots inside after the frost knocks the leaves off of them.  The basement probably only gets to a low of 60F over winter.  Will that temp be low enough to keep them dormant if covered from light?  Or, is there a better way of dealing with this?

Charley, 60 degrees seems too high. I don't know if light deprivation alone will do the trick.
I would imagine the plants would break dormancy soon after you bring them inside, and the tips would soon wither from lack of water, or the roots would rot from too much water.
Are you able to keep them as houseplants?
Or store them at a friend's or family member's, with the promise to reward them with some fruit or plants?
If you have a tucked away spot in your yard, maybe the thing to do is to lay them down flat, bury them in leaf litter, or if that's an eyesore, physically bury them in the soi in a trench, again on their sides, and get a couple of bags of builders' sand to backfill around the branches and trunk. Cover the whole setup with garbage bags 2" from grade to keep out excess moisture,
and cover the bags with topsoil.
Youtube may have videos on this.

Light doesn't affect fig dormancy, temperature does. In a basement in the 60s they'll be growing by mid winter.

Ruuting and fignutty,

I thank you for the information.  It somewhat told me what I was hoping not to read.  One solution is to have a root cellar and the other is to load them up and haul to someone else's place for overwintering.  Those are not really good or convenient solutions but may be the only choices I have.

Rui's idea seems very simple and would work very well assuming you don't dig the hole too deep and get into the seasonal water table.

Another alternative that has been suggested on this forum before is to build a large insulated box (4'x8'x4' high) outside next to the house (out of site).
It would look similar to Rui's diagram except the walls and top would be wood, insulated all around on the inside (extruded polystyrene or similar) and covered with a plastic or tarp.  This should keep the figs dormant all winter and next to the house would ensure they don't get too cold.  Lying the trees sideways you can fit a lot of trees in this space.

Have you considered keeping them in place and just wrapping them up for the winter? If you do it right they should be fine through out the winter.

After reading that the basement remained too warm to keep them dormant, I did a bit of calling to some friends for storage suggestions.

One alternative may be to move them to a cave in a rock quarry.  One fellow has a small cave on the farm.  Limestone rock near the surface has disolved over the many years of water flowing from the hill side.  Of course both have a constant year round temp of about 54F and no sunlight.  Is that cool enough for over winter storage and maintaining dormancy?  I suspect the small farm cave will get cooler for some periods as it is not very deep into the hillside.

I'd say 54F still isn't cold enough to keep figs dormant all winter. To do that you'd need at least 10F colder.

Your mean winter temperatures in KY are ideal for winter storage of figs being roughly in mid 30sF. Figure out a way to take advantage of that which means what others have mentioned, an insulated storage that evens out the highs and lows and maintains temp in 30s. Most places are too cold or too warm in winter to do that. You have an ideal climate if you can make it work for you.

A deep cave is too warm because it will be about at your mean annual temperature, that's in the 50s.

when plants are young and small, it is easier to put them in a tray, carry them inside and out, for outside day light aclimation and warmth of the house, if you do that every other day,  you get them used to the sun light and may not drop the leaves once you let them out permanently.  I found that a tomato cage with a plastic bag with 'venting holes', like a dry cleaning one on hanger, is good to protect them from cold winds whem outside.  It is alot of in and out and fussing, but it works if you have just a few plants.  your winter is almost over, right?

fignutty,
Of course you are correct on the MEAN winter temperature.  Lots of days with 50F highs during Dec and Jan.
Even with last winter's vortex the soil temp at 4" did not get below 32F.  And we never have snow cover lasting more than a week.
However the air temps can easily drop to 0F or lower for short periods.  In last winter's vortex extreme it was below 0F for over a week and I believe the absolute low may have hit minus 15F.  Generally not as bad as Chicago because the cold does not persist.  However it can get just as cold as Chicago for a few days.  And a few days is all that it takes to kill and top growth or possibly kill roots near the surface.  All of that leads to late spring growth starting from a plant much reduced in size and vigor.

Grasa,
Your suggestion may be what I have to go with.  It would mean doing the fig plant shuffle many times.  However, as long as the forecast lows are not going to be below 35F I suppose it could be done.  Put them back in the basement for a few days or maybe a week.  I just don't have a good sunny window with space for a couple of 5 gallon fig pots.  I would want to keep the potted ones relatively small anyway.  Maybe there is a way to do a Sack in Pot in Pot?  I don't believe I've seen pictures of anyone doing that though.

As to the question of winter being almost over, No, it is still several months away.

Charley:

So build a structure that takes out the highs and lows. The soil can be your heat sink/source. The figs need to be close to the soil as in a pit, laid down, or above ground but with exposed soil or concrete. Then insulate the figs from the above ground fluctuations in temperature. That means 6-8 inches of really good insulation like styrofoam or 24+ inches of decent insulation like straw or leaves. If you can hold it between 30 and 40F they won't freeze and won't start growing excessively early.

Just lay the pots down on bare ground in early winter before they freeze. Cover with a tarp. Cover that with 3ft of leaves and cover leaves with a water proof tarp. Maybe some mouse poison under there.

I agree about the wrapping, or the burying.  I've done both.  We've been burying my dad's trees since 1966.  If you (or anyone else reading this thread) decides to try burying, please take care to avoid having mulch/leaves right around the stems of the plant.  We lay them on their side by digging around the roots (to get to where they are soft and can be bent over) and a trench extending from one side of the hole around the root ball.  Then lay it over on its side, and place a board (plywood or whatever you have available) over the top of where the branches and trunks are, and then place soil and/or mulch on top of the board.  The point is, you want air around those trunks and branches, not mulch.  If you have mulch there, it gets wet while buried, and that rots the bark, and the branches die.  I have photos of how we've done this, and can post them in about a month (the photos are not where I am).  

But I also agree that wrapping is another option.  There are lots of posts on here, and also on youtube, about wrapping fig trees.  I live in zone 5a in central NY state, and my dad's trees are near Buffalo.  It gets very cold here.  Both techniques work  (wrapping and burying).  But you don't want to let it stay wet around the bark of the branches and trunks.  There are a few other winter strategies described on the forum as well.  Good luck with whatever approach you choose!

Mike   central NY state, zone 5a

After starting the thread and getting some good advice, some other ideas have caused me to wonder about keeping the trees cold to maintain dormancy.

How do people who live in warmer areas keep the trees continuously below the 40F or so level to keep the trees dormant.  The question relates to trying to over winter the trees in a 55F basement that can get warmer.  When I read of people growing these in north Georgia, I wonder how they keep the trees from budding during longer warm periods during the winter, followed by below freezing temperatures.