Jay Bilas, who I thought called a tremendous game last night (a rarity these days) brought up a great point about Scottie Reynolds. Midway through the second half, Reynolds had a couple of really bad possessions on offense. Bilas remarked:
“Scottie Reynolds is getting away from himself. He’s not a traditional point guard. He’s a scoring point guard and he’s forgetting that.”
Personally, I couldn’t agree more. I think part of this problem has to do with the inconsistency of Corey Fisher running the point. Jay Wright probably feels as if the team is best served with Reynolds running the offense, but I don’t think that’s the truth. Case in point, look at Scottie Reynolds’ freshman season. Villanova had a seasoned point guard in Mike Nardi, and you could really make the case that Scottie Reynolds hasn’t lived up to the expectations he put on himself after that year.
In a perfect world, Corey Fisher really grasps the position and Scottie Reynolds can work off the ball, where he’s most effective. I really do believe that Corey Fisher is closer to becoming the true point guard that this team despartely needs, but he’s not totally there yet. The real problem still lies with Reynolds though.
He’s been put (or put himself) in a position where he feels like he needs to be the guy racking up the assists. That’s not who he is and his overall game is suffering because of it. He’s not looking for his shot consistently and because of this, he’s not getting into a good rhythm. He’s not what you’d call a streaky shooter, but he is a guy that when he gets into a rhythm, he’s nearly impossible to stop.
In fairness, Scottie Reynolds isn’t the reason why Villanova is 2-3 in conference play and hasn’t beaten a good team yet. I think Scottie Reynolds has the ability to take this team to the next level however. Villanova isn’t a team with gifted offensive options all over the court. In reality, they have a one frontcourt threat (Dante Cunningham), a 3 point specialist (Corey Stokes), and one established backcourt threat (Scottie Reynolds). Reynolds is a scorer, and everyone else around him will benefit from him remembering that.
We can all live with Scottie having a 4-12 type of night from the field, because it happens to everyone. What Villanova can’t have is Reynolds consistently having 2-5 types of nights, where he’s not even looking for his shot.
January 24, 2009
[...] year, they gave Scotty the keys to run the offense, and his play has fallen a bit this year. IBBW has a good account on the troubles Reynolds has had running the point for the Cats this season. [...]