In the latest installment of the Nova Notebook, we connected with Wildcats' guard Bryan Antoine as he looks ahead to his third season in the Blue & White in 2021-22.
 
In spite of the acclaim he earned as one of the more decorated players in the prep Class of 2019, Bryan Antoine has never paid much attention to the whirl of social media.
 
Not then.
 
Not now.
 
The 6-5 guard – who celebrated his 21^st birthday on April 26 - understands that there are those who look at a two-season college experience limited by injury to 26 games and 205 minutes and wonder what that portends for 2021-22. Others point to Antoine's impressive moments down the stretch for the Wildcats as a sign that a corner has been turned. Indeed, to Villanova head coach Jay Wright those promising signs boiled down to one simple fact.
 
"He's finally healthy and able to practice," said Wright on multiple occasions over the final weeks of 2020-21.
 
The man himself appreciates the opportunity a summer with a full basketball workload presents and is eager to build on the quiet gains made away from the spotlight.
 
 "I feel a lot more developed," said Antoine in a recent interview in the Davis Center cinema. "I've learned a lot from the coaching staff and players over the last year and a half. Coming into my junior year, I feel I've got a grasp on all of the terminology and concepts we've been taught.
 
 "That's probably the best feeling, even after all that time being hurt, unable to practice or work out. "
 
To recap, here is a brief history of the aforementioned tribulations.
 
On May 31, 2019, just days after arriving at Villanova, Antoine underwent surgery to repair an injured right shoulder that he had played through as a senior at the Ranney School in 2018-19. The procedure was much more than a tweak. It required an extensive rehabilitation effort that essentially left Antoine as little more than an observer of practice and games for the remainder of 2019.
 
Though Antoine did ultimately see action in 16 games as a freshman, the lengthy stretch of inactivity proved too much to overcome. That situation grew even worse in early March, when the 2019-20 season was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Antoine was soon headed home to join his parents, Regina and Jean Antoine, and younger brother Evan, as the University shifted its operations online.
 
Antoine and his teammates did what they could on their own at home over the period from mid-March to August while staying as connected as possible virtually. But it was a far cry from the developmental structure usually in place in the summer months.
 
When Villanova did return to campus in August, the workouts were limited to small groups of four. Just as the team was preparing to ramp up to full practices in late September, there was a COVID pause that sent the Wildcats into quarantine for 14 days. On the first day back to practice in October, Antoine suffered another injury to his surgically repaired right (shooting) shoulder. That sent him back to another stretch of rehab that didn't end until the middle part of January, when he was finally able to resume practice. He would not see his first 2020-21 game minutes until Feb, 10, 2021, in a victory over Marquette.
 
"What this kid has gone through," stated Villanova head coach Jay Wright at several points during the season, "is unbelievable."
 
The Wildcats have seen a handful of challenging individual injury situations since Wright became head coach in 2001. Jason Fraser battled knee woes and ultimately underwent seven surgical procedures in his four seasons on his knees and wrist. Curtis Sumpter tore the anterior cruciate ligament in the same knee twice, seven months apart. Current Wildcat Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree has spent much of the past two seasons dealing with shin injuries and Collin Gillespie suffered a torn MCL that ended his season prematurely on March 3.
 
There is, however, no recent parallel for the bumpy road Antoine has traveled thus far.
 
"There are a lot of important people I've leaned on," Antoine says of the period. "God, for one. No matter what happens I pray to Him at night. He guides me. I talk to my parents and FaceTime my little brother all the time. The coaching staff, my teammates and our trainers have helped carry me through. We have a group chat as a team and if anyone is having a problem, we just talk about it.
 
"Kevin Hoehn is my roommate. We've gotten closer in this last year in our 'bubble. Jermaine (Samuels) has been great too. He was always coming up to me to see if I was all right because he knew how hard I was working to get back. He had some of those experiences earlier in his career. Just having those guys, and all of my teammates, to talk to, was big."
 
Still, it would only be natural for there to be doubts about a second injury to the shoulder he shoots with.
 
"When I hurt it the second time there is that thought in my mind, 'what happens if I hurt it again and can't use it anymore?'" Antoine states. "'What happens if I'm not the same person any more?'
 
"Mentally, it was just a matter of pushing through all that. Whatever God puts in front of me is the journey. As Coach Wright always says, my journey isn't the same as anyone else's. I take pride in that. I'm unique in my own way. I never took it as a bad thing that I was hurt so much. Once I got cleared to practice, it was behind me."
 
When the Wildcats returned from their second and third COVID pauses in mid-January, Antoine was finally ready. Over the next four weeks, he practiced regularly and the strides made were apparent to the coaching staff. When he stepped into game action, he was better prepared than he had been a year earlier. His speed and quickness brought a new wrinkle to the Wildcats' defense. The injury to Gillespie on "Senior Night" created an opening for additional playing time for the Wildcats' reserve guards and Antoine took advantage.
 
In the Wildcats' final five games of 2020-21 – including four postseason outings – the native of Tinton Falls, N.J. – averaged 16.6 minutes per game. With Nova' struggling to shake 25-1 Winthrop in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, Antoine's eight points in 19 minutes provided the offensive boost Villanova needed to gain control in the second half of what ultimately became a 73-63 victory.
 
"Towards the end of the season, I really started becoming comfortable on defense," Antoine says. "Defending and rebounding is such an important thing here. I felt like with my quickness, defense was going to help me. By that time of the year, I wasn't double thinking wondering if I was doing something wrong."
 
Those final weeks may have reminded the basketball world why the Nova Nation was so excited when Antoine first announced he would enroll at Villanova. But the man himself isn't worried about vindication or living up to the hype.
 
"At different times there has speculation about me on social media but that doesn't affect who I am or how I play," Antoine states. "I trust my parents, I trust the coaching staff here and I trust Villanova. I don't pay attention to all the outside noise."
 
The goal for this offseason is straightforward: to become a better basketball player.
 
"You can't pinpoint one single thing and work on that one single thing," he states. "When it comes to offense, when it comes to defense, when it comes to conditioning drills, for the first time I feel like I actually have an offseason and summer to work on all of that.
 
"For me, whatever it is, basketball, lifting, stretching, eating, I'm taking it all seriously."
 
A summer filled with the simple pleasure of being in the gym at 100 percent sounds more than enticing to Antoine.
 
"I'm not someone who thinks about the past a lot," he says. "I'm not thinking about surgery in 2019 or with everything being shut down in the pandemic last summer. I'm just happy to be here for the opportunity now."
 
There is one part of the past that Antoine soon hopes to revisit.
 
"Before COVID, I made a lot of friends here outside the basketball team," he says. "There were a lot of people I would never have thought I would become friends with because sometimes I can be a shy guy. But the kids here are very nice."
 
Antoine came to enjoy hanging out at the Oreo on sunny days and looks forward to resuming that activity when conditions permit.
 
"Everybody would go there and hang out in the warmer weather," he states. "You would call out your friends and hang out. Even though I don't mind the virtual classes, I like going to class in person too. The teachers here care a lot. That's a great opportunity. You're not always going to be a basketball player. When you have teachers that care, it goes a long way."
 
In 23 months, Bryan Antoine has endured more than his share of physical setbacks. At every step he has faced them head on. That won't change now that he's in position to benefit from a healed shoulder.