Reynolds a blast from the past

Spend 10 years writing exclusively about baseball and it’s easy to get lost about the goings on in other sports. There is only so much one guy can do to keep up with the full range of games, but when it gets right down to it sometimes all a guy can do is focus on what is in front of him.

Over the past decade I’ll wager that I have been to approximately 1,000 baseball games, but maybe 30 to 40 college basketball games. A long time ago those numbers would have been reversed.

The bad par, of course, is missing out on the terrific ballplayers that came through the Big Five over the past decade. Oh sure, I caught Jameer Nelson just because St. Joe’s was one of the biggest stories of 2004 when they were No. 1 for most of the college season. However, names like Randy Foye, Allan Ray, Dionte Christmas, Pat Carroll, Mardy Collins, Dante Cunningham, David Hawkins , Kyle Lowry, Steven Smith and Curtis Sumpter (amongst other standouts over the last 10 years), get lost in the pile of early-season ballgames.

Fortunately, Scottie Reynolds of Villanova decided to return to Villanova for his last season because it would be a shame to miss out on watching him play.

Reynolds is an undersized guard in a city with a long tradition of great guards. Though he’s listed at 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, I suspect he’s probably an even 6-foot and maybe a few pounds lighter. However, unlike the traditional Big 5 guard, Reynolds isn’t content to stay in the backcourt in half-court sets and spread the ball around like Howie Evans, Pepe Sanchez or even a shooter like Lynn Greer.

Reynolds will mix it up inside if need be. For instance, even though he scored 12 straight points from the outside in the first half of the 82-77 victory over No. 11 Georgetown at the Wachovia Center on Sunday afternoon, Reynolds’ biggest hoop of the game came with 3:14 left when he knifed to the hoop against three bigger players for a layup and a foul. For good measure he made four straight foul shots to held ice the game with less than 36 seconds remaining.

Reynolds scored 27 points on just 15 shots and 29 minutes in the victory over Georgetown.

“He can’t be contained,” Georgetown’s coach John Thompson III said after the game. “I don't say that in jest. He's too good of an offensive player and they do too good of a job of getting him where he needs to be. It's nothing new. He’s been doing it for four years. What's different is now as a senior, when they need a basket, he ends up with the ball in his hand and good things happen.”

Though he’s a small guard, Reynolds has a game similar to 6-foot-5 Big Five guard, Mark Macon of Temple. The difference, of course, was that Temple relied on Macon to score. In fact, John Chaney, Macon’s college coach, was known to say that he’d rather have Macon take a bad shot than another player to take a good one. That’s how much Macon meant to Temple and Chaney.

But aside from his freshman year in 1988 when Temple was the No. 1 team in the country, Macon didn’t have the supporting cast like Reynolds has had with Villanova. Still, even with teammates destined for the NBA like Foye, Cunningham, Ray and Kyle Lowry, Reynolds should hit the 2,000-point plateau by the end of the month.

Depending upon how far Villanova goes into the NCAA Tournament, Reynolds could flirt with Kerry Kittles’ all-time scoring record (2,243), which is saying something considering all the talent he had to share the ball with.

Still, the best part about Reynolds—and where he is most like Macon—is that he is accountable. Though Chaney would always forgive one of Macon’s hurried shots, the former Owl (now acting head coach at the University of Binghamton) famously pleaded with his coach to yell at him more. Because Chaney leaned on him so much more than the others, Macon thought he should also have to face the music more often, too.

As if anyone has to tell John Chaney to scream at them twice…

Villanova’s coach Jay Wright also forgives a lot of Reynolds’ mistakes for a lot of the same reasons. That attitude works out very well when Reynolds turns in some bad games like the one he had in the Big East Tournament semifinals against Louisville last year where he went 1-for-6 from the field, including 0-for-3 from beyond the three-point arc with six turnovers and just two measly points in 38 minutes.

Prior to that, Reynolds dropped 40 points on Seton Hall only to fall into a funk where it took him four games to match the scoring output of that one game.

“Some games we lose and he looks really bad, but that never affects him. He comes back the next game and makes the same plays,” Wright said last season, marveling at Reynolds’ fearlessness in the face of failure. “That's a great quality to have as an athlete.”

So if you get the chance to catch Reynolds in action (and you’re into that sort of thing), make sure you do it. After all, players like him are seen just a few times a decade.

Wright's close up ends quickly

The vision of missed jump shot followed by missed jump shot chipping away the orange paint from rim was still fresh. The sting of defeat was still working its way down the solar plexus and into the pit of the stomach of those Villanova players who vainly tried to keep pace with the North Carolina Tar Heels all night long in Saturday’s National Semifinal.

The pain and the inevitable “what if…” had not quite set in as Saturday melted into Sunday.

Still, even though accepting the loss in the Final Four will be difficult, it’s easy to imagine Jay Wright back in the same spot of the NCAA Tournament in the not too distant future.

It’s also not too difficult to imagine a different result than the 83-69 defeat to Carolina, just one step away from the National Championship game.

You see, Wright, just 47, is built to last at Villanova. He still is not halfway through a contract extension that lasts until 2013 and will compensate him well enough to keep him in those sharp-looking, single-breasted suits. More importantly, Wright seems to have received the extension for doing something that is often rare in sports these days…

He paid his dues.

Aside from the long car rides beating the recruiting trail as an assistant at Rochester, Drexel and Villanova, before taking over at Hofstra, Wright has restored the luster to ‘Nova that was lost during the angst-filled final days of Rollie Massimino’s run on the Main Line. He has embraced the Big Five series instead of brushing it aside as a trite hometown obligation, while turning his program into a bona fide powerhouse that isn’t going to tiptoe up and surprise anyone.

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Wright will return

Even with the vision of missed jump shot after missed jump shot chipping away the paint from the rim, and the sting of defeat still working its way down the solar plexus, it’s easy to imagine Jay Wright finding himself back in the same point of the NCAA Tournament in the not too distant future. It’s also not too difficult to imagine a different result than the 75-62 defeat to Florida on Sunday afternoon just one game shy of the legacy-making Final Four.

You see, Wright, just 44, is built to last at Villanova. Just this year he was rewarded with a contract extension that lasts until 2013 and will compensate him well enough to keep him in those sharp-looking, single-breasted suits. More importantly, Wright seems to have received the extension for doing something that is often rare in sports these days:

He paid his dues.

Aside from the long car rides beating the recruiting trail as an assistant at Rochester, Drexel and Villanova, before taking over at Hofstra, Wright has restored the luster to ‘Nova that was lost during the angst-filled final days of Rollie Massimino’s run on the Main Line. He has embraced the Big Five series instead of brushing it aside as a trite hometown obligation, while turning his program into a bona fide powerhouse that isn’t going to tiptoe up and surprise any one.

Better yet, Wright’s first group of players to go through a four-year run won more games during that span than any other in school history, all while the coach did all the little things that he prodded his kids to do.

Sure, in the end coach is only as good as his players, but special talent like Randy Foye and Allan Ray always seems to wind up playing for the right coach. And they really seem to make it hard for all of us ‘Nova haters.

More tourney talk Since Villanova won the 1985 tournament, the Big 5 is 0-8 in regional semifinals. ‘Nova has gone down twice, St. Joe’s nipped by Oklahoma State two years ago and Temple has lost five finals under John Chaney.

But even though the local team has finally been sent home, the early word on this year’s tournament is that it’s the best one in a long, long time. Forget about 11th-seeded George Mason making it to the Final Four for a minute, in 60 games the underdog team has won 20 times, while only three games were decided by 20 or more points.

Add in the five overtime games and the fact that no No. 1 seed made it to the final weekend and it’s hard to argue about how compelling this tournament has been.

Then there is George Mason. A diverse, yet regional school that was only founded in 1957, George Mason not only put together one of the greatest upsets in tournament history when knocking off UConn in the regional final, but also strung together one of the most impressive runs to become the highest seeded team to make it to the Final Four.

Not bad for a team that some of the experts said shouldn’t even be in the field.

Certainly there weren’t too many people who thought Mason would beat Michigan State in the opening round, let alone defending national champion North Carolina to get to the Sweet 16. Then with the victory over Wichita State and the No. 1 team in the country, it seems as if the Patriots are a legitimate contender to win the whole thing.

Now all we need to do is find someone who can name a player on the team.