De George: St. Joe’s Erik Reynolds, Villanova’s Eric Dixon leave conflicted legacies given teams’ shortcomings

As though there wasnt enough forever linking them together a city, a sport, a rivalry, a first name Erik Reynolds and Eric Dixon acquired one more immortal commonality last week.Within about 48 hours, each player saw their college basketball career, for all intents and purposes, end.

It came Thursday night for Dixons Villanova at Madison Square Garden, then Saturday afternoon in Washington D.C.

for Reynolds and his Saint Josephs Hawks.One has been crowned the all-time leading scorer in his programs history, the other needs to do little more than make the flight for his next game to guarantee hell do the same.And yet, though Reynolds will go down as the leading scorer in Saint Josephs history and Dixon is destined to be the same at Villanova, each went quietly into that good night of college basketball relevance with eerie similarity.Dixon, 2-for-15 from the field, 1-for-7 from 3-point range, managed eight points as the Wildcats bowed out in the Big East quarterfinals to UConn.Reynolds, 1-for-12 from the field, 0-for-7 from 3-point range, scored four points in St.

Joes Atlantic 10 tournament semifinal loss to George Mason.Saint Josephs guard Erik Reynolds II reacts during a game against Villanova on Nov.

29, 2023.

(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)Reynolds college career ends without the guard ever having played an NCAA Tournament game.

Dixons will end under an interim coach, in something called the College Basketball Crown, capping a legendarily fallow period in which Villanovas basketball way has withered around him.Its a strange legacy for each to leave, one that bears little resemblance to the legends their names stand by in Philadelphia basketball lore.One does not score in excess of 2,000 points in college by accident, even with the intervention of a global pandemic creating a fifth year.

Both players places among the elites at their respective universities is earned and deserved.But in the pantheon of Big 5 greats, in a city that reveres its history like few others, if the teams shortcomings around them dont tarnish their legacies, they at least contextualize, and the context is anything but flattering.

Each programs failure to capitalize on such a historic star is regrettable, but so is that players inability to elevate those around them to even the relatively low bar that is merely making the Tournament.Dixon is eight points shy of taking over for Kerry Kittles as Villanovas leading scorer.

Kittles, a lottery pick in the NBA where that matters, made the NCAA tournament in each of his last two seasons, albeit with just one win for the Wildcats.

His career total was buoyed by leading the Wildcats to the NIT title in 1994, carrying significantly more prestige than now.

In his final weeks, Dixon passed Scottie Reynolds, who made four NCAA tournaments and a Final Four on the way to his aesthetically pleasing 2,222 points.Dixon was a cornerstone contributor to the Wildcats run to the Final Four in 2022.

But the last three iterations of the Wildcats were his teams.

And his teams never made an NCAA Tournament.The fact that Dixon is left to set the scoring record in a College Basketball Crown game a tournament that already sounds like an anachronism is a significant data point.

That it owes to 33 points in two NIT losses plus whatever happens in Las Vegas is notable, too.Erik Reynolds stands above Jameer Nelson on St.

Joes all-time scoring list.

After Wednesday nights ouster in the first round of the NIT for the second straight year, Reynolds finished his career with 2,175 points to Nelsons 2,094, the only two Hawks and (among 24 in City 6 history) to cross the 2,000-point threshold.

But Reynolds teams, no matter their dalliances with challenging for at-large berths and brief flirtations with significant wins, never mounted much of a charge at the NCAA Tournament.

Not only did they fail to come anywhere near the immortal 2003-04 Elite Eight campaign, they didnt even come close to the follow up, a run to the NIT final in 2005.Consecutive 20-win seasons, a first on Hawk Hill since 2002-05, is a notable achievement under Reynolds.

But the Hawks current eight-season NCAA Tournament drought (excluding the cancelled 2020 edition) is the longest since a decade without dancing from 1986-97.Around the city, individual excellence has always correlated with team success.

At La Salle, Lionel Simmons powered three NCAA tournament berths, Michael Brooks two, Tom Gola both NIT and NCAA titles, albeit in a long bygone era.

On North Broad, Mark Macon led Temple to two Elite Eights, Lynn Greer to one Elite Eight and one NIT title.

Michael Anderson, John Rankin and Malik Rose all tasted the Big Dance at Drexel, Rose three straight times.

Even Penns AJ Brodeur helped the Quakers momentarily concern Kansas in the first round of the 2018 tournament.

They defined eras at their schools, some of the best players in their programs histories coinciding with some of their best teams.Correlation is neither causation nor blame.

Dixon had to play with essentially three different teams each of the last three years, under a coach in Kyle Neptune whose tenure predeceased Dixons.

Reynolds cant control that St.

Joes is an institution of 5,000 undergrads with an arena seating 3,800 competing for bids against schools with many multiples its resources.

Both played through what could prove one of the most tumultuous, destabilizing eras of college athletics of NIL, of the House settlement, of that little pandemic thing.Dixon and Reynolds will see their names deservedly go down in history.

Their pictures will someday look to someone like Golas does to us now.But if those viewers ponder what great success each star brought to his team, theyll be sorely surprised.Contact Matthew De George at [email protected]..

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