The T.Y.G.T.A.L. team included three former Temple players, Mark Tyndal, Mardy Collins and Dustin Salisbery.

According to CSNPhilly.com:

T.Y.G.T.A.L. led almost the entire game before Omega Medical made a furious comeback in the final minutes to take the lead. With the game knotted at 56 with just over a minute left, Redding made a nice pass to Pena for a layup and-1. Redding then nearly gave the game away. He was stripped in the backcourt by Collins, who converted a layup to tie the game up. But Pena’s [3-point] jumper sealed the deal to win the title.

Pena apparently put on a show all summer, showing off some outside shooting ability that he rarely exhibited in college, including that corner-3.

For his efforts in the title game, which included 22 points and 7 rebounds to go with that game winning triple, Pena was given the MVP award. Redding, who had the assist on that game-winner, had 12 points, 10 assists and 8 rebounds of his own.

Redding will leave for Germany later this week to play for the Walter Tigers Tuebingen, which is not nearly as long a trip as he made last fall to play in Cyprus (his team won the championship). Pena will be leaving for Spain where he will join UB La Palma, which is actually based in the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, in the Spanish second division.

As for Frank Tchuisi? Well, he was back at work on Monday morning, as a Financial Analyst at an insurance underwriter in the Philadelphia area. He was the “-Am” in their Pro-Am team.

Sumpter to Stay Stateside?

After a few years of playing abroad in France, Belgium, Germany and Greece, Curtis Sumpter told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was ready to take another run at the NBA. Sumpter previously played for the Denver Nuggets’ summer league team after college and even went to camp with the Los Angeles Clippers, but didn’t make the roster with either team.

He now feels like the D-League might be a good opportunity for him to show off what he can do.

“I want to do the ‘D’ league,” Sumpter said of getting a spot on a team in the NBA’s Developmental League. “I haven’t done that. I know guys who left Europe and went to the ‘D’ league and got good opportunities.”

On the signing, Redding noted, “I’m very excited and at the same time happy that I get the chance with the WALTER Tigers in a strong European league play, we have a young and hungry team, will that wants to succeed. I will do my part.”

Redding averaged 14 points and 6 rebounds in his first professional season.

The Tigers finished 12th in the 2010-11 Basketball Bundesliga

H/T to Pablo!

Academically, the Class of 2010 was one of the strongest in Villanova’s history. Applications increased drastically every year and acceptance rates declined to match. These graduates are some of the most-accomplished young men and women the University has ever enrolled and the ceiling on their future achievements is limitless.

The Class of 2010 saw a lot of ups and downs during their tenure at Villanova, but unlike older classes, these graduates never saw their ‘Cats lose to a division II school like Chaminade. They never saw a basketball season that ended after the Big East Tournament and never had to hope for an NIT berth to keep the season going.

This class celebrated the school’s first ever National Championship in football as well as one in women’s Cross Country (the 17th and 18th in school history). They watched a basketball team go to a Final Four for the first time since 1985. In all, the Class of 2010′s tenure coincided with one of the most successful periods in Villanova’s athletics history.

In particular, the athletic achievements of the following graduating seniors were notable:

Russell Wooten:

Though Russell only spent two years on the roster and never averaged more than 1.4 minutes per game (playing in 22 games over two seasons). He spent two years as a practice player after being a 1st Team all-conference player at St. Augustine high school in Chula Vista, California.

Wooten came to Villanova without a scholarship offer and volunteered to work out to help the scholarship players develop. By providing opposition in practice, Wooten helped strengthen the basketball program from behind the scenes.

In the 2008-2009 Final Four season he played in 14 games, seeing a total of 21 minutes and recording two rebounds. In the 2009-2010 season, he played in 8 games and scored the first points of his college career.

Russell picked Villanova not only for basketball, but because of his interest in the superior academics. He will graduate with his Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology.

Reggie Redding:

Reggie came to Villanova after a legendary career at St. Joseph’s Prep, where he was the school’s all-time leading scorer and was named first team All-Philadelphia Catholic League as a senior. Reggie had scholarship offers from NC State, Boston College and Pitt, but chose Villanova over all of them.

After being a stud scorer in high school, Redding was asked to become a defender at Villanova. It took hard work, but by his Junior year, he was heralded as the team’s best defensive player and a key starter on the Wildcats’ run to the Final Four.

Reggie Redding won the 2009 Paul Arizin Award for most improved player on the Villanova squad, and went on to share the 2010 Most Outstanding Player award in his senior season.

Reggie worked hard to earn his minutes at Villanova like Dwayne Anderson before him.

Scottie Reynolds:

It is hardly necessary to summarize Scottie Reynolds’ career. In addition to 2,222 points career scoring (2nd in school history), Reynolds had 482 assists (6th) and 203 steals (4th). Perhaps more impressively, after playing 139 games in a Villanova uniform, Scottie Reynolds is tied with Dante Cunningham for the school record of most games played.

Scottie is practically a sure thing to have his jersey hanging from the rafters some day. Winning the Most Outstanding Player award for the 2009 NCAA East Regional, as well as being named a consensus first-team all-everything as a senior, Scottie’s career was among the most-decorated in school history.

As I wrote for the blog Ballin’ is a Habit, Scottie came to Villanova as a great hope for a program that had just lost 75% of the best backcourt in America. His role changed over four years, from the wild scoring machine to an efficient team leader.

Regardless of all of the statistics and honors that Scottie won over the years, he will always be the player that took Villanova to the Final Four by sheer force of will.

Congratulations to ALL of the Members of the Villanova Class of 2010.

Thanks to BossHoggHazzard!

Wrapping up the 2010 Villanova Basketball Season is the annual Banquet which is being held tonight at The Pavilion, with the highlight of the event being the Team Awards handed out by Head Coach Jay Wright and the rest of the Coaching Staff.

Senior guard Scottie Reynolds, who finished #2 on Villanova’s All-Time scoring list and was a 2010 1st Team All-American was the recipient of the Villanova Basketball Award.

According to the award, it “is given each year to the player who best exemplifies the characteristics of the Villanova Basketball Player and is considered to be the program’s highest honor.”

But that wasn’t all for Reynolds. In a rare double, he along with fellow-senior Reggie Redding share the Most Outstanding Player award.

The 2010 Paul Arizin Award, for the most improved over the  was given to junior Corey Fisher.

Freshman Mouphtaou Yarou, a native of Benin, is the recipient of the Alexander Severance Award for the player “whose dedication in the class room demonstrates a commitment to reaching his full potential.”

Senior Walk-On, Russell Wooten, will be bringing back to California the Jake Nevin Award. That award ”honors the player whose selflessness provides an outstanding example to his teammates.”

Congrats to the Awards Winners! And thanks to the 2010 Villanova Basketball Squad.

From the Banquet…

Redding faced a Delaware County judge today and was placed in Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition. The primary purpose of this program is “rehabilitation of the offender; secondarily, the purpose is the prompt disposition of charges, eliminating the need for costly and time-consuming trials or other court proceedings.”

The charge will be dropped from his record if he stays clean for year.

The senior guard will also need to perform 16 hours of community service. He will be able to play on Saturday against Fordham.

Reggie is back. And coming off of the loss to Temple where his ability to be a glue guy, a leader, and a tenacious defender were missed- it couldn’t be soon enough.

Reggie will still have to answer to the paraphernalia charge.It is unclear why the prosecutors have opted to drop this charge. The items found in Reggie’s car were a bag of a “green leafy vegetable matter” and a grinder. It is possible that the vegetable matter was something other than marijuana, but such a discovery should have lead to both charges being dropped.

It is unlikely that the police officers mistook a bag of oregano for the good stuff. So the dropped possession charge is either an attempt to go easy on a first-time offender or the result of the prosecution’s determination that the marijuana (despite being in Reggie’s car) was not in his ‘possession’ for legal purposes.

There may have also been a procedural error involving the evidence. If the police lost the evidence, or can’t account for the chain of possession since taking the baggie into evidence, or any of a number of other methods of contamination, the prosecution would be unable to support a case against Redding.

Either way, this is good news for Reggie Redding. One less charge to answer too, and surely a less-serious legal consequence.

Five weeks ago, inspired by the best selling book, The Wisdom of Crowds, we set out to test author James Surowiecki’s central thesis that by averaging the individual predictions of a group of independently thinking people, groups can make more accurate predictions than experts working alone. We conducted our test by polling the VUHoops readers, asking them to predict the minutes per game (MPG) of each player on Nova’s roster for next season. The polls are now closed, but we’ll have to wait until the season ends to assess whether there is, indeed, wisdom in the VUHoops crowd. Until then, we have some interesting scenarios to ponder, including what combinations of players will be on the floor to account for all those MPGs we predicted for each player.

We had to make a few computations to translate the readers’ votes into player MPGs. For you diehard statisticians, our methodology will be fully described in Part III of our recap, which will be posted next weekend. To the other more trusting readers, we offer the assurance that we validated our methodology with greyCat, editor of the outstanding and quantitatively-oriented blog, Villanova by the Numbers. In this installment, we review the MPG results for the guards; forwards & centers will be posted later this week.

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SCOTTIE REYNOLDS: 31.5 MPG … ▼0:42 from 2008-09 … projected games played = 38

Stan’s Take: “[Scottie] gets about the same amount of time over the course of the season, barring injuries.  I just don’t see JW cutting back or “sacrificing” those points or any of his game. He is a glue guy. He is the guy who is going to direct traffic.”

Games Played Assumption: Plays all 38 games, as was case last year

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COREY FISHER: 28.5 MPG … ▲4:12 from 2008-09 … projected games played = 38

Joegrane’s Take: “I think Jay has to find some minutes for Wayns to protect the team in the event of an early exit [to the NBA] by Fisher after next season.   I would do that through a modest reduction in Scottie’s minutes, while not increasing the minutes for Reggie and only slightly increasing the minutes for Cory Fisher.”

Games Played Assumption: Plays all 38 games, as was case last year

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COREY STOKES: 24.7 MPG … ▲1:54 from 2008-09 … projected games played = 38

Paul ‘91’s Take: “I’d like to see Stokes improve his ability to create open jumpers in the half court.   I think a small improvement here could lead to great improvement in his overall stats and MPG.”

Games Played Assumption: Plays all games, as was case last year

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REGGIE REDDING: 24.1 MPG … ▼4:42 from 2008-09 … projected games played = 27

Stan’s Take: “I just don’t see that many minutes for Reggie. We have too many guys coming in who can do things well. They are going to get their chance because Reggie is out until December 18.”

Nick ’09’s Take: “If you get a chance to look back at the tournament games, Redding was absolutely dynamic. If he works on his shot and his confidence, I think there’s more than decent chance that he becomes a “go-to-guy.”

Games Played Assumption: Based on last year, 11 games will be played prior to December 18, when Reggie’s suspension officially ends.

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DOMINIC CHEEK: 15.8 MPG … did not play last season … projected games played = 28

Derp’s Take: “I think Cheek gets a pretty decent amount of time this season. There aren’t too many minutes to go around, but St. Anthony guys seem to be incredibly well prepared for the college game and I don’t think he’s an exception.”

Games Played Assumption: Assume comparable to Kyle Lowry’s freshman year

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MAALIK WAYNS: 14.7 MPG … did not play last season … projected games played = 28

Sarge’s Take: “Wayns has so much upside. He’s going to be a better PG than Fisher or Scottie because of his pass-first mentality and his ability to get to the hoop with ease. I love that is he great defensively and his court vision could be the best on the team.”

Games Played Assumption: Assume comparable to Kyle Lowry’s freshman year

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JASON COLENDA: 1.8 MPG … ▲ 0:30 from 2008-09 … projected games played = 22

Nervous Nelly’s Take: “Jason must score a field goal this year!”

Games Played Assumption: Plays in 22 games, one more than last year (Senior Night start)

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