Jim Souhan: MCTC coach puts winners on the floor, into the wider world

It's a Wednesday night in the gym at Minneapolis Community & Technical College, and the usual suspects dot the bleachers. There's Trent Tucker and Steve Winfield -- Dave's brother and local man-about-town. There's FSN broadcaster and former NBA assistant Mike McCollow, more than a handful of college coaches, and a smattering of what McCollow likes to call "local basketball junkies" attracted to MCTC coach Jay Pivec's top-ranked team.

What's surprising and yet typical about Pivec's latest powerhouse is that one of his best players, Cortez Wallace, didn't play basketball in high school and didn't start playing for Pivec until, a year out of St. Louis Park High School, he completed his GED and became eligible.

Wednesday night, Wallace, a sophomore center and preseason second-team All-America, scored 27 points and collected five rebounds, an assist, a block and two steals as MCTC improved to 23-1.

Wallace is listed at 6-5 and, although undersized, he's a force around the basket because of his powerful build and leaping ability.

He could have been a dominant high school player, but Wallace said that his mother constantly moved between Minneapolis and St. Louis Park during his high school years and that he had to work, so he couldn't go out for the team. "I didn't have the time," he said. "It was real tough, because I really wanted to play basketball there, but it seemed like every time it was time for the tryouts, I was busy having to work. I was pretty upset with that."

Pivec heard about a streetball legend named Cortez Wallace and checked him out when the And1 Mixtape Tour -- featuring a streetball, highlight-reel version of the game -- came through town and showed interest in Wallace.

Pivec and his assistant, Ron Gates, told Wallace that if a college education interested him, then MCTC was waiting. Wallace took the hard road toward the GED over the instant gratification of the And1 Tour. It took him a year to get his GED, and now he's averaging 16 points and five rebounds for the top-ranked team in the National Junior College Athletic Association's Division III and mulling scholarship offers from Division II programs.

Wallace seems intentionally vague about his upbringing and the reasons for his inability to play high school basketball. Pivec painted a picture of Wallace's life, saying Wallace is at the mercy of bus schedules and, unlike most kids, can't always be reached because he doesn't have a cell phone plan.

"In our society, we talk about the underserved," Pivec said. "He's the underserved, through no fault of his own, through circumstance. Gosh, how many kids do I see every day in our halls who I don't know, and they're underserved, and their situations might be even worse. But they're trying.

"You walk our halls here, and the level of diversity that we have doesn't exist in another institution in the state of Minnesota, sans maybe a public high school in the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. But we don't have any problems with students -- problems with discipline or anything else -- to any level, because they're here to make something of themselves.

"They're facing the same issues he's faced -- health care, insurance, housing, nutrition."

Sitting in the bleachers after the game, Wallace was asked where he'll be in three years. "Hopefully, I'll have my degree, and I'll be doing something urban, because I like working with kids," he said. "I do a lot of volunteering. I'll get a job, and go from there."

That would constitute a long journey in a short time for a guy who, two years ago, hadn't played high school ball or earned a diploma.

"Sometimes for these kids, at all levels of athletics, we become the last bastion of organization, sensibility, trying to put some meaning to the madness, in a two-hour practice or a two-hour game or in the peripheral times you see the kid," Pivec said. "He's one of the many we've had here who have been impacted by that. Obviously, the guy has some prowess as a basketball player and an athlete, but he's also developing into a really nice young man."

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m.-noon on AM-1500 KSTP. • jsouhan@startribune.com