The happy freshman

Scottie Reynolds watched Oklahoma's basketball team play its Senior Night game on television and breathed a sigh of relief.

That was the sound most Villanova fans made when they heard last summer that the point guard was headed for the Main Line instead of the Great Plains.

Coming out of Herndon, Va., he was a hot recruit who opted out of his commitment to Oklahoma when coach Kelvin Sampson left for Indiana. The sigh came because that choice did not start a negative chain reaction.

"I'm happy to be in this position," Reynolds said. "I'm happy Coach Sampson is where he is. I was afraid things wouldn't work out the way everyone wanted. You couldn't ask for a better way for things to work out."

That was especially true for Villanova, but not so much for the rest of the Big East, which Reynolds has been shredding.

He is a favorite to win the conference's rookie of the year award. The winner will be announced tonight, and the only Wildcat ever to win the honor was Tim Thomas in 1997.

Ninth-seeded Villanova will begin the Big East tournament with a first-round game tomorrow afternoon against eighth-seeded DePaul at Madison Square Garden.

Reynolds is averaging 14.1 points per game, but a more telling statistic is that he is averaging 18.4 points per conference game.

After starting the season a tad timid, Reynolds has grown into a player who comes up big in showcase games.

In January, he lit up 20th-ranked Notre Dame for 27 points and followed that with 26 points to take down 15th-ranked Texas. Against Georgetown, Reynolds scored 18 points in a home loss and 16 in a road win.

"He's such a competitor," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "There aren't too many people around who the ball goes in for as much as it does for Reynolds."

"His confidence is what separates him," Marquette coach Tom Crean said.

Reynolds slowed down for a five-game stretch, looking as if he had hit the freshman wall. But he has hit a late stride, averaging 26 points in the last five games.

They included a 40-point explosion in a win against Connecticut that left Huskies coach Jim Calhoun - who has seen a good share of standout freshmen roll through Storrs - with his tongue wagging.

"I haven't seen a better performance by anybody this year," Calhoun said.

Across the country, most people talk only about two freshmen - Ohio State's Greg Oden and Texas' Kevin Durant. But Reynolds is making his mark on the Main Line.

"I don't know if physically he's on a level like that, but the impact he's had on our team, the numbers he's put on the year, he's up there," Villanova coach Jay Wright said.

Expectations are always high for McDonald's all-Americans. But Reynolds has been more than solid. He helped save Villanova's season, scoring when the Wildcats' offense was developing.

He has connected on nearly 40 percent of his shots and made 38.9 percent of his three-point attempts.

"You just try to thrive when the ball is in your hands, whether it's scoring or making a play for a teammate," Reynolds said.

Reynolds has had his share of freshman mistakes - a bad foul, a few too many turnovers - but they're the type Wright does not mind.

"I don't think he's made any mistakes by being tentative or scared," Wright said. "He makes mistakes being overaggressive, which I love, especially for a young guy."

Reynolds has said wants the seniors to get all the glory this season while he waits his turn. But the Wildcats needed him after the departure of spark plug point guard Kyle Lowry to the NBA after last season.

Villanova's coaches and his teammates had to give Reynolds their blessing as well as a green light to take shots.

When he finally listened, it was lights out.

"He's just been fun to watch," Wright said.