Basketball is usually associated with the winter months, packed gymnasiums and 10 participants. Not any more.

One of the fastest growing trends in sports is 3-on-3 outdoor basketball played in tournaments.

An estimated 150,000 people attended Chicago’s Shoot the Bull tourney this weekend. An additional 15,000 people watched 3-on-3 hoops in Rockford at that city’s first Gus Macker Tournament.

Fans of NIU basketball at both events saw some familiar faces.

“Chocolate Swirl” captured the top women’s division title this weekend at Rockford. Swirl was comprised of former Huskie greats Tammy Hinchee and Lisa Foss, along with NIU sophomore Yconda “E.C.” Hill.

The threesome swept through the tourney with only one loss, a loss they avenged in the championship game.

After her stellar NIU career Hinchee continued to play basketball as a professional overseas. Foss, NIU’s all-time leading scorer, will join Hinchee this fall in the foreign pro ranks.

Hill, who was regarded as the top high school woman basketball player in the country during her senior year at Chicago’s Whitney Young, sat out her freshman year at NIU because of Prop. 48. She had just returned to the midwest after taking part in the Olympic Festival in Los Angeles and playing as part of the U.S. Junior Olympic team in Mexico.

One of the interested spectators at Rockford’s tourney was NIU head women’s coach Jane Albright. Although Albright has had a great deal of success coaching of late, she was in Rockford as just a fan.

“These guys don’t need my coaching,” Albright said of the NIU trio. “I think it’s just great to see (former players). We’ve tried to create a family atmosphere at NIU and I think we’ve been successful.”

Not quite as successful as their female counterparts were former Huskies Stacy Arrington, Antwon Harmon, and Tim Sullivan, who advanced to the finals of the major college division at the Shoot the Bull tourney before falling in the title game.