Sept. 26, 2008
The Nova Notebook, by Villanova director of media relations Mike Sheridan, appears weekly during the fall and into the basketball season and periodically from May through August. In this entry we touch base with junior guard Scottie Reynolds.
After a summer of 2007 that saw him represent his country at the Pan American Games in Brazil, Scottie Reynolds understood that the months of June, July and August would be different this time around. There would be less travel, for sure, and perhaps a few more days to spend with his family in Herndon, Va.
Yet Reynolds was determined to advance his game just as he had by going against the nation's top college players in the Pan American Trials. So with that unique outlet unavailable, the 6-2 guard focused his energy on the nuances of improvement every athlete can make in the off-season.
"I called this," he says, "the summer of the laboratory."
The locations varied. Many of the hours were spent on the men's court at the Davis Center. Other times he worked out in the Washington, D.C. area. He also found alternate sites to hone a game that has in two short seasons allowed him to become the 50th member of Villanova's 1,000-point club.
"I was just in the gym working on my game all the time," he states. "I felt like this was one of my best summers in terms of working on my skills, sharpening up things that I need to work on. Everybody on this team has done that as well."
Specifically, Reynolds sought to view each game as a mental challenge as well as a physical one.
"One of the things that Coach (Jay Wright) and I talked about at the end of last year was that I could work on spreading it out so to speak," says Reynolds. "I want to be able to mix it up as much as possible. Sometimes, that will mean scoring. Sometimes, I should be looking to set my teammates up.
"It's kind of like playing a chess game with the defense. Changing the speed and the tempo is another part of it."
Reynolds did some of this fine tuning on his own. However, it was more common for him to have a workout partner. Generally, those individuals were his Villanova teammates.
"It's good to bring somebody in with you so that you aren't just working out by yourself," he states. "Bringing a teammate along with you shows them the work ethic that you have to have. It's not easy to be a BIG EAST player."
Of course, Reynolds' first two seasons might lead observers to think otherwise such has been his ability to make an impact. As a freshman he emerged as the Wildcats' top scoring threat in BIG EAST play and helped seniors Curtis Sumpter, Mike Nardi and Will Sheridan lead a charge back to the NCAA Tournament one year after the loss of All-Americans Randy Foye, Allan Ray and National Basketball Association first round draft pick Kyle Lowry. That work helped him earn the distinction of BIG EAST Rookie of the Year.
As a sophomore, he was named a team captain and then helped the `Cats overcome a five game slide in late January and early February that culminated with the school's third appearance in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in four years.
"I think we all grew as players and teammates," says Reynolds of 2007-08. "We started out real well and then went through some tough times. But we stayed together. "What I learned from Mike, Curt and `Bump' (Sheridan) in my first year helped me when we went through hard times last year. They were always so positive and I think the lessons we learned from them helped us pull it out in the end."
Reynolds dealt with much that was new as a sophomore. For the first time as a collegian, he was consistently the focus of opponents' defensive schemes. He was also mentoring younger guards like Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes. And then there were a series of injuries, to his knee and hand, that cropped up in late December and never completely healed until the season ended.
"I don't like to talk too much about the injuries," he says. "As you go through the year most guys have something bothering them. But I would say last year they took a toll on me. There were the knee and hand injuries. It didn't help that at the same time we were having problems in the win column.
"Coach Wright talks to us about how each day things are going to come up. It's how you overcome them that matters. When you do that, it makes you a better person and a better player. I felt like that everything that went on last year, at the end of the year, made us better people and the best team we could be."
Towards the end of the year Reynolds spent more time in the role of offensive quarterback than he did in the early stages of the campaign. Often that leads to a discussion of whether Reynolds is better suited to the point or off guard position. The subject himself really doesn't pay too much attention to the distinction.
"I'm just a Villanova guard," he states. "I think of myself as a player. A Villanova guard is hard to come by - it's hard to do. That's what so good about coming here and having Coach Wright teach you. It doesn't matter what system you play in or what style you are playing. A Villanova guard can handle any style or atmosphere and do it as well as anybody that is labeled an off guard or a point guard."
With less than three weeks remaining before the start of practice, Reynolds continues to set his sights on 2008-09.
"The summer is about improving as an individual," he explains. "Now we are working on getting all of our terminology down so that when we start practice we'll have that behind us."
If the summer just past was the R&D phase of Reynolds' lab work, it's very nearly time to roll out the latest system update.
If Scottie '08-09 offers the same kinds of growth the previous two editions did, the Nova Nation will be only too happy to celebrate the upgrade.
