Scottie Reynolds is a guard and the team captain for the Villanova Wildcats, the number 2 seed in the South bracket of this year’s NCAA Tournament. While his journey hasn’t been an easy one, Reynolds has managed to keep a positive outlook, bringing the senior closer to fulfilling every college player’s dream of winning the NCAA title.
Yahoo profiled Reynolds, who, from the time he was little, faced problems and turned them into opportunities. When he was born, his biological mother gave him up for adoption, and while he could be angry about the situation, he was instead thankful that he was adopted by the couple (Pam and Rick Reynolds) who would become his parents.
As a senior at Herndon (Va.) High School, near the completion of a successful high school career, he was all set to go to Oklahoma for college, where Kelvin Sampson was the Sooners’ coach. But then Reynolds found out that Sampson had taken a job to coach at Indiana, unsettling Reynolds’ plans. Upon deciding to attend Villanova, Reynolds could’ve easily been resentful about having to go to his second choice, but he instead, as Villanova coach Jay Wright is quoted in the article, “has become the face of our program.”
And back in 2007, following his breakout freshman season, Reynolds took part in the Pan Am Games as a member of the US team — and got schooled, shooting a paltry 21.6 percent in five games. As he was quoted in the article, “It was humbling. I was playing against 30-year-olds and I got ate up. It brought me back to earth. I was like, ‘I’ve got to get a lot better.’”
Reynolds has done just that. He’s averaged 18.5 points a game this season, leading the team in scoring and steering the Wildcats to a 24-7 record. He and the team have one more negative to turn into a positive, though, as they were upset in the Big East tournament by unranked Marquette, with Reynolds only scoring 10 points on 4 of 10 shooting and three turnovers. If I were Robert Morris University, Villanova’s first round opponents on Thursday, I’d keep a close eye on Reynolds, based on his track record alone.
Screengrab via YouTube.