Bob Ford: How Villanova landed Scottie Reynolds

Scottie Reynolds had the world figured out until the phone rang.

His decision hadn't been easy, but the McDonald's all-American guard was going to finish his senior year at Herndon (Va.) High School and then play basketball for the University of Oklahoma.

Reynolds was a prized recruit - only 24 high school seniors in the nation are chosen for the annual McDonald's all-star game - and the list of schools that had chased him the previous year was lengthy and impressive. The Villanova Wildcats were not on the list, but not because his name eluded them.

Jay Wright had gone to an AAU game the previous summer to watch a potential recruit named Chris Wright. The game had barely started when Jay Wright saw a guard who was all over the court, the talent flying from his hands and feet like sparks, his toughness bristling on each drive through the lane.

"Is that Chris Wright?" the Villanova coach asked his assistant, hopefully.

"No, that's Scottie Reynolds," Wright was told.

"Well, why aren't we recruiting him? He's unbelievable."

But Wright was too late; Reynolds had committed to Oklahoma. Chris Wright would eventually commit to Georgetown. It was just another night in another gym watching young players who would someday win a lot of college basketball games for someone else.

And then the phone rang. Two years ago today. March 28, 2006. It was Kelvin Sampson, the Oklahoma coach, who had told Reynolds all the wonderful things they would accomplish together and had promised he would always be there for him.

Sampson was quitting Oklahoma, one step ahead of an NCAA-violations posse. The next day, he was announced as the new coach at Indiana. The world that had been so orderly crumbled around Reynolds.

"I remember it like yesterday," he said. "I couldn't even speak. I literally didn't even speak to him on the phone. It broke my heart."

So forgive Reynolds if he takes a moment to look around Ford Field tonight before Villanova plays top-seeded Kansas in the Midwest Regional. Let him look at the 70,000 fans and feel the great spotlight of the NCAA tournament and feel that, just maybe, he made the correct decision after all.

"It was crazy, unbelievable," Reynolds said of those frantic weeks after Sampson resigned, which released him from his commitment to Oklahoma. "It was pretty tough for me."

And then the phone rang again.

This call was for Jay Wright, and it was Gary Hall, Reynolds' high school coach in Herndon.

"Do you know who Scottie Reynolds is?" Hall asked Wright.

"Yeah, I saw him last summer. He's one of the best guards I've ever seen," Wright said.

Hall told Wright that Reynolds was on the recruiting market again. And then the game was really on.

The final list that Reynolds sorted through included Michigan, Maryland, Louisiana State, Oklahoma (again) - and Villanova. Only days before Reynolds had to make his decision did Wright find out he had a scholarship to offer. Kyle Lowry had declared for the NBA draft, and the Wildcats didn't just want Reynolds. They needed him.

"I think just the toughness aspect of how they played is what stuck out to me" about the Wildcats, Reynolds said. "I had started watching them more and more."

He had watched Lowry and Randy Foye and Allan Ray and Mike Nardi, and - all right, it sounds corny, but Wright sold him on it - Reynolds wanted to be A Villanova Guard.

And there he was last weekend in Tampa, Fla., scoring 21 and 25 points in the NCAA tournament and leading his team from the point-guard position. In the second-round game against Siena, he played 37 minutes against furious pressure and committed just two turnovers.

"I think it was his best ever," Wright said afterward. "Scoring when he needed to, controlling the tempo, getting the ball to other guys, only two turnovers, did all the dirty work. He's putting it all together.

"Last year, he was a great college player, fun to watch, and he won a lot of games for us. But there were a couple we lost because he was a little out of control or didn't play defense as well. But this year, this game, is amazing."

Reynolds has gone from a freshman season in which he could rely on older teammates to cover his back to a sophomore season in which he is doing the covering.

"They made up for my mistakes. All I had to do was go out and score, and they knew how bad I was on defense," Reynolds said. "This year, I have so much more respect for what they did, because now I'm in that position."

He's in that position in the regional round of the NCAA tournament, a guy who two years ago today didn't know which way he would turn or which direction his life might take.

"Everyone's always talking about the bad things that happen in recruiting. You know, 'We lost this guy' or 'We lost that guy,' " Wright said. "Well, we were handed on a platter a McDonald's all-American. So anything that happens to us negatively in recruiting, we can never complain."

There was one last phone call. Reynolds had already made his decision. It would be Villanova, and he had orally committed to Wright. All that was left was signing the papers and making the announcement.

"I called Coach Wright. I think he was in a hotel room or something," Reynolds said. "I said, 'Coach, I'm not going to be coming to Villanova.' He dropped the phone. He picked it back up, and I said, 'Coach, I'm just playing with you.' "

And then Scottie Reynolds laughed, and Jay Wright started breathing, and the world began to make sense again.