SAN ANTONIO — Fred Hoiberg and Greg McDermott shared a laugh at the AT&T Center on Thursday as they awaited the start of the NCAA tournament.

Five months removed from a scrimmage between Iowa State and Creighton in Omaha, the two friends couldn’t help but laugh at the distant memory.

“Would you ever envision that the two of us would be calling ourselves three-seeds after that debacle?” the two wondered together before practice.

The two teams have come a long way since late October.

“We both would probably tell you we didn’t see two three-seeds on the floor that day,” McDermott said. “We watched a couple teams that had some pieces, but had a long ways to go.”

Iowa State and Creighton found themselves back together in the same location preparing as No. 3 seeds for the NCAA tournament Thursday, and although each is in a different region with the National Championship the only possible rematch of that scrimmage, they have their eyes on one another.

McDermott coached at Iowa State from 2006-10, and his departure for Creighton allowed for the return of Hoiberg to coach his alma mater, where he will lead the Cyclones in their third-straight NCAA tournament appearance Friday night against North Carolina Central.

The former-ISU and Northern Iowa coach, McDermott, has the Blue Jays headed into their third consecutive NCAA tournament while coaching his son, Doug, an Ames High graduate and All-American who is widely considered the leader to win National Player of the Year.

“It’s amazing how things worked out,” McDermott said. “Sometimes when you have a shuffle like that, does the move work for me? Does it work for Iowa State? Does it work for Doug? In this case, everything worked great for everybody.

“I think that’s really, really cool.”

Everything worked out fine for ISU forward Melvin Ejim, too. The lone remaining McDermott recruit at Iowa State, Ejim chose to keep his commitment to play for the Cyclones after McDermott left for Creighton.

The two have remained in touch, and McDermott has been happy to watch the Big 12 Player of the Year turn into the player he initially recruited.

“What I knew is Melvin Ejim is a better person than he was ever going to become a basketball player. And he’s become a heck of a basketball player,” McDermott said. “(He’s) one of my favorite people that I ever recruited. He’s a wonderful young man and has had a great career, and I’m very proud of that.”

Hoiberg and McDermott shared their laugh Thursday about the rugged scrimmage five months ago, but only because now they enter the NCAA tournament in a position they couldn’t have seen coming that day in Omaha. 

“They’ve come a long ways,” McDermott said. “They made great progress, and I think they’re in for a good run.”