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Rich Hofmann | 'Nova's ticket punched now? Wright unsure

STORRS, Conn. - Scottie Reynolds dropped 40 on UConn last night. Forty! And the furrows in the brow of Villanova coach Jay Wright were nonetheless there to the very end.

STORRS, Conn. - Scottie Reynolds dropped 40 on UConn last night. Forty! And the furrows in the brow of Villanova coach Jay Wright were nonetheless there to the very end.

As you read this, it is now March. And it is so hard.

Reynolds, the Wildcats' wondrous freshman, hit from everywhere - every distance, every trajectory, contested, uncontested, unbelievable. He broke the scoring record by an opponent in this building, Gampel Pavilion, and he broke the Villanova freshman record held by Alex Bradley (35 points in 1978). Reynolds did all of that, and UConn found a way to miss 20 out of 44 free throws, and Villanova still had to sweat a 78-74 victory beyond any and all reason.

The whole thing was bizarrely thrilling. And so hard.

"It's just the league," Wright said. "It's just the way it is. The kids all know each other. The good thing is, nobody is intimidated in this league because everybody knows each other. The bad thing is, whatever happens in the game, the other team is

going to keep coming and keep coming. These kids in the Big East just go at each other with no fear."

Reynolds stood a few feet away from Wright, talking to a couple of reporters. Wright admitted to being as thrilled as anyone in the building, watching this kid explode. Reynolds is the enormous X-factor here as the Wildcats maneuver toward the NCAA Tournament. Senior Curtis Sumpter had 18 points and 10 rebounds,

including a huge offensive-rebound basket in the final 2 minutes with the Huskies trailing by only one, but the shadow cast by Reynolds on nights like these is enormous.

March, then. You would like to believe that the Wildcats punched their ticket last night. They are 20-9 and they have played a great schedule and they have done some nice out-of-conference work. They are a tenacious, persistent defensive team that seems to look a little different offensively every time you see them. They are inconsistent sometimes but more than worthy.

Yet the Big East standings say they are only 8-7 in the league, with one game remaining against Syracuse on Saturday at the Wachovia Center. That 8-7 leaves them tied for seventh in the league with three other teams.

Their resume should be plenty. But you never know what the tournament selection committee might think when it sees the train wreck that is the Big East conference standings.

"When you ask me if I'm worried, well, yeah, I am - I'm a coach," Wright said. "We're very concerned about that. We've played out of conference and

we've played teams that are very highly rated and we beat them. Then we play teams in our conference that we can't beat. So, yeah, you worry about what they think."

There is a further complication. Almost none of the major conferences, except the Pac-10, play a balanced schedule anymore. The common phenomenon these days is that, for reasons of television scheduling, there are more matchups of good teams against good teams in a conference.

Coming off their Elite Eight

appearance last season, the

Wildcats got a murderous Big East schedule. If you look at the seven other 20-win teams in the league, Villanova will have played every one of them - and three of them twice. Meanwhile, against the league's bottom five teams, Villanova had only three games total. And it's a good thing UConn is down this year or it would have been beyond

ridiculous.

As it is, the Big East has calculated that Villanova has the toughest conference schedule in the league (to go along with the toughest non-conference schedule). The league says it regularly communicates this information to the selection committee,

especially to Craig Littlepage, the Virginia athletic director whose job it is to be the committee's expert on the Big East.

So, they will know. You just have to trust that they will listen - and this isn't just for getting into the tournament, but for seeding the Wildcats as well.

"I kind of have the feeling that we get enough exposure, and enough people watch these games, that they'll say, 'Come on, there isn't another league like this anywhere,' " Wright said.

"Just look at it. The physicality. The talent. The toughness. The coaching. My gut tells me, they know. My gut tells me, they know. But I am concerned. I know the issue. You list the teams in our league, and you know we're not as highly rated as we were last year, so they'll not probably take eight teams again. So you know somebody's not going. So, you worry."

Reynolds was wrapping up his interview. A few minutes earlier, Wright had said, in real wonder, "A freshman? Here? That's

big-time." But it had been such a confounding night for the Wildcats, so bizarrely entertaining.

In a few minutes, Reynolds and Wright and the rest would be headed for a charter flight back to Philadelphia. If they were lucky, they might have landed by midnight, or soon after.

Midnight, and the month changes. March, and the only thing that gets easier is seeing the horizon. *

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hofmanr@phillynews.com.

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