The players from Minneapolis and Vermilion were going through the pregame warmup before Friday's last quarterfinal in the Minnesota Community and Technical College men's basketball tournament.
Minneapolis' Jay Pivec and Vermilion's Paul McDonald, a pair of veteran head coaches, were talking hoops near midcourt. The conversation was interrupted when several women of college age and carrying a distinctive big-city look came walking under a basket.
"Watch my players," McDonald said.
Pivec was puzzled for a moment, then noted that the firing of practice shots had ceased on Vermilion's end of the floor. It did not resume until the city gals had chosen a location from which to watch the game.
McDonald retold this story on Saturday afternoon, as he was enumerating reasons that Minneapolis is going to be sorely missed as a presence in the state JUCO basketball scene.
"This is a program with national prestige -- with a coach [Pivec] going into the junior college Hall of Fame next month," McDonald said. "Plus, we spent the winter in Ely, and coming here and playing in downtown Minneapolis ... that's an exciting thing for all of us."
McDonald said he has heard a couple of rival coaches express relief that the Minneapolis program is going away -- presumably, so their teams might have a clearer path to advancing through Minnesota to the JUCO Division III national tournament.
"All I can say when I hear that is, 'Are you crazy?'" McDonald said. "Jay Pivec creating this program at Minneapolis has been tremendous for all of us. Athletics are about competition, and if our kids beat Minneapolis, they had the satisfaction of beating the best."