UWGB's Noah Reynolds earns two player of the week honors, Preston Ruedinger on mend ahead of road trip
GREEN BAY – The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men’s basketball team improved to 8-7 with its win over Robert Morris on Sunday at the Resch Center.
It’s not just the first time this season the Phoenix is over .500, but the first time it has had a winning record at any point since the end of 2019-20.
It’s not difficult to figure out why UWGB is having some success after winning a combined 16 games the past three seasons and already matching its combined win total for the past two.
The Phoenix has the second-ranked scoring defense in the 11-team Horizon League and is 81 out of 351 Division I teams in the nation, allowing 66.3 points per game.
It also happens to have junior guard Noah Reynolds, or the “alpha dog” as UWGB coach Sundance Wicks sometimes refers to him.
The 6-foot-3 Reynolds is staking an early claim to be the Horizon’s player of the year.
He’s coming off some dazzling performances in which he was named both the league’s player of the week and the College Insider Lou Henson player of the week after averaging 33 points, 3.5 assists, 3 rebounds and shooting 66.7% in wins against Wright State and Robert Morris.
Reynolds has jumped to second in the league in scoring average at 19.4 points, which is 0.6 points shy of the 20 by Wright State’s Trey Calvin.
He is ranked first in the league with 4.5 assists per game, third in shooting percentage at 51.4% and is in the top 10 in minutes and assist-to-turnover ratio.
Reynolds hasn’t just been everything UWGB was hoping for after spending his first two seasons at Wyoming before entering the NCAA transfer portal last spring, it’s clear he’s been even more.
But what if, knock on wood, Reynolds should happen to miss a few games like some of his teammates have this season?
What happens to a Phoenix team that has started 3-1 in league play entering a game at Detroit on Thursday if it doesn’t have its player of the year candidate?
“I think what is cool is that we are the only team in the nation that has about like seven guys averaging 7 points,” said Wicks, whose team has eight players scoring at least 5.9 per game. “What they are very capable of is, on any given day, those guys can step up. That’s what I see in practice. That’s why a guy like (senior guard) Ryan Wade can come in and play 25 minutes (against Robert Morris) and it looks like we don’t miss a beat.
“He’s out there getting ready pre-practice, coming in on Sunday. Our guys just stay ready. So, when you have a bunch of guys that average about 7 points and you’ve got a big alpha dog in Noah that you know what you are getting from him, we’d just have to do it by committee. I think you’d see a completely different team.”
Wicks has no interest in seeing that play out, but he does love the depth the Phoenix has created. When he watches the second unit during practice, he sees how connected they are and how well the ball moves around.
“They are all capable of playing basketball at a really high level, you just do it together,” Wicks said. “When you have got a guy like Noah, you use his gravity. That’s why he’s leading the league in points per game and assists per game, because he can do everything.”
Reynolds has been shooting lights out for more than a month after he felt like he started the season struggling a bit.
He went 4-for-12 in the first game at Iowa State and was 3-for-21 on 3-point attempts through the opening four contests.
But since UWGB’s win over UW-Milwaukee to start December, Reynolds has shot 50% or better overall in seven of the last eight games.
All the work he put in during the summer when nobody was watching, when he stayed in Green Bay and required himself to make 1,430 shots per day and more than 10,000 per week, has started to pay off in a big way.
It also helps that he is over the hand injuries that plagued him early, including finger and palm issues.
“Those things, they are not excuses,” Reynolds said. “It’s just a reality of what was going on.
“The position I was in and the role I play on this team, maybe facilitating for guys at times, sometimes I wasn’t always focused on shooting the ball or getting to my shot first beyond the arc. It could be a bunch of things, but I would say those things specifically.”
Preston Ruedinger expected to return this week
Sophomore guard Preston Ruedinger missed the Robert Morris game with a hip pointer injury, but he’s expected to be available for the Michigan swing against Detroit and Oakland.
The 6-2 Ruedinger has had some tough luck this season, missing games because of an ankle, a hip and COVID-19.
It comes after he played just nine games for Valparaiso in 2022-23 before being shut down for the rest of the season with a shoulder issue that required surgery.
Ruedinger is averaging 5.9 points in 23.2 minutes for the Phoenix, appearing in 11 games and starting seven.
“I feel for him as a player,” Wicks said. “But what I am going to ask right now is, who the hell out there has a voodoo doll? Somebody has got some stuff going on out there and I don’t know what it is, but they need to knock it off.
“I feel bad for that guy. He’s had a string of bad luck right now, and that’s just the way it goes.”
UWGB’s win over Robert Morris was important one
After the Phoenix beat the Panthers earlier this season to improve to 4-4, it responded by losing two straight games.
After it beat Wright State on Friday to get back to .500 at 7-7, everyone outside the team waited to see how the Phoenix would respond this time, whether it could keep the momentum going against Robert Morris or fall back again.
UWGB women also on a roll: Phoenix gets two statement wins in Horizon League
After a 78-61 victory extended UWGB’s winning streak to a season-high three games, it had answered the question.
“I would say it’s huge,” Reynolds said. “It showed a lot of maturity out of our guys.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: UWGB's Noah Reynolds earns honors as Phoenix prepares for road trip
