Isiah Thomas posed for a few pictures with the Western Michigan women's basketball team after his Florida International squad finished practice.
He does that on occasion. Especially with people from Michigan, where he is the iconic legend who led the Detroit Pistons to two NBA championships and carved out a career as one of the 50 best players in the history of the game.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's team shouldn't be quite as star-struck.
The Mocs will face FIU tonight at 7:30 in Miami and try to end a two-game losing skid.
"It's not me versus Isiah or me versus Rick Pitino like when we played Louisville," UTC coach John Shulman said. "It's our team against their team."
Yet all of the star power is on the Panthers' bench, as it has been since Thomas took over the program before last year.
"I definitely watched him and he's one of the greatest ever," UTC point guard Keegan Bell said. "I've got some of those highlights, those VHS tapes, still at my house, and I've watched him do his thing.
"He was a little guy, but he dominated the game. He got his guys involved and was a tough guy."
After his playing career, travels and tribulations took Thomas to different professional jobs with the Raptors, the Continental Basketball Association, the Pacers and Knicks before he landed in the college ranks at FIU.
"I'm a basketball guy, period," Thomas said over the phone. "I like basketball at all levels.
"You teach the same things and try not to forget the fundamentally sound things such as rebounding, foul-shooting and not committing a lot of turnovers."
Thomas became well-known after playing point guard for Bob Knight at Indiana University and winning the 1981 national championship.
UTC is tentatively scheduled to open the 2011-12 season at Indiana and follow that immediately with a trip to historic Hinkle Fieldhouse for a game against Butler, which came within a hair of winning the national championship back in April.
Those games are almost a year away. The FIU contest is tonight, and it's important for UTC, which had a disappointing effort in an 87-75 loss to Jackson State on Wednesday.
The Mocs were off Thursday and returned before sunrise for a practice Friday. Then they flew from Chattanooga to Charlotte to Miami and headed straight from the airport to another practice. They had tickets to see the Miami Heat play in the evening.
"People hear 'Miami' and think we're here to party and see the Heat," senior Troy Cage said. "But we're here to win a game."
And they're certainly not there to be in awe of a playing legend who now is an opposing college coach.
"We're a very similar team to UTC. We like to get up and down the floor, pressure defensively, and our bigs can move out on the perimeter," Thomas said. "But they shoot the 3 a lot, so if they get hot from the outside, it could be a long night for us."