Erik Reynolds II is the new all-time scoring leader at St. Joe’s, and a whole lot more to coach Billy Lange

The curtain calls rarely are planned, which makes them even sweeter.

There was enough separation Wednesday night between St. Joseph’s and its opponent, Rhode Island, that Billy Lange got to pull Erik Reynolds II from the game in the waning moments for one last send-off at Hagan Arena. Earlier Wednesday, on senior night, Reynolds passed Jameer Nelson to become the men’s basketball program’s all-time leading scorer with a first-half three-pointer a few feet from Nelson’s front-row seat.

Fans rose to their feet for the curtain call and roared as Lange opened his arms, kissed Reynolds on the cheek, and embraced the player who helped change the trajectory of the basketball program the last few seasons.

“This has been hard on a lot of people here,” Lange said later. “You try not to personalize it, and that’s hard to do because we’re human beings. I know a lot of things that have been said and talked and written about me. To have that kid stay here for four years, at the level of player he is, it just says everything about who he is as a person. I will dramatically miss him, and it’s not for the reasons everybody in this room probably thinks it is, it’s because he’s a throwback. So my reaction was to just kiss him.”

The record-breaker didn’t come right away. Reynolds needed just two points to tie Nelson and three to pass him entering Wednesday, but his shot was off early. He tied the record with two free throws more than 14 minutes into the game and broke it with 3 minutes, 14 seconds remaining in the first half. Justice Ajogbor grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed free throw and quickly kicked the ball out to an open Reynolds, who drilled a three-pointer from the wing.

“This place has been nothing but good to me,” said Reynolds, who has scored 2,114 for the Hawks. “It was a lot, but also a lot to be thankful for as well.”

It’s not over, either. St. Joe’s topped Rhode Island, 91-74, for its fifth consecutive win, all of which have come by double digits. The Hawks have won seven of their last eight and should lock up the coveted double bye at next week’s Atlantic 10 tournament if they take care of business Saturday in their regular-season finale at La Salle.

St. Joe’s improved to 20-10 (11-6 A-10) Wednesday and has consecutive 20-win seasons for the first time since Nelson was on Hawk Hill. Reynolds, of course, has been a big part of that. There was a lot to celebrate Wednesday, including a player-coach relationship that started long before a record-breaking three-pointer fell.

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Reynolds was a skinny, 6-foot-2 combo guard from Temple Hills, Md., just southeast of Washington, when Lange started recruiting him after taking the St. Joe’s job in 2019. Their relationship, though, flourished during the pandemic. Lange would go for walks around his neighborhood and talk to Reynolds on the phone. They would talk basketball, of course, but more than that, they talked about Marvel movies and Reynolds’ taste in music, like R&B singer Tevin Campbell, whose heyday was before Reynolds was born.

“It didn’t even seem like a recruitment,” Lange said. “I just really looked forward to the connections with him. I loved talking about music with him; it was great. He’s got an old soul because of the way his mom raised him.”

Those talks laid the foundation for what was to come. Reynolds’ experience at St. Joe’s, he said, went exactly the way Lange told him it would. When Reynolds was a freshman, he and Lange had a Monday night ritual during one of the rebuilding years. Reynolds had a night class and would meet in Lange’s office afterward, where Lange would have a burger from Landmark ready for Reynolds to eat while they went through some of his recent film.

Those office sessions are a regular occurrence, especially when Reynolds hits rough patches in his play, which, for him, tend to come in the form of shooting slumps. There was a big one earlier this season, which probably delayed the breaking of Nelson’s record by a few games. Reynolds made 6 of his 13 three-point shots in a season-opening win over Navy, but made just 17 of his next 73 over the next 10 games. He went 9-of-24 in the next two but started conference play by going 4-for-23 in the Hawks’ first three A-10 games, and they were 1-2 in those three games.

Landmark is no longer open, but Lange decided to get Reynolds a burger and go back in the time machine.

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“We’re going to pretend you’re a freshman again, and we’re going to be vulnerable and we’re going to be honest and we’re going to have an enjoyable time here, but we just have to talk about everything,” Lange said. “He ate his burger, and we just connected on a level of, ‘How do I help you manage through expectations and people?’ It all just goes back to the same relationship we built during the recruitment.”

It was similar to how Lange helped Reynolds get through a shooting slump last season. He brought Reynolds into his office for a lighthearted chat, and they listened to some of Campbell’s songs together.

“I tried to get him to look at it, like, if you play 120 games, don’t you think you’re going to have 20 games like that?” Lange said. “You just don’t want any of them to be in your senior year, but you don’t get to pick it.”

It hasn’t been a great senior season by statistical standards for Reynolds, whose 39.6% overall mark from the field is a career low, and so is his 30.9% mark from three-point range.

“This has probably been the hardest I’ve ever coached him in terms of demanding more, and I really believe he’s playing his best basketball,” Lange said. “His defense is better, his assist-to-turnover ratio is better, his decision making out of pick-and-rolls is better. He just went through a shooting slump.”

As Reynolds knows best, or at least has learned, they don’t last forever. He made four of his 10 three-point attempts Wednesday.

“Each year that passes, it just gets stronger and stronger,” Reynolds said of his relationship with Lange. “He just puts more trust in me. He believes in me in every play. Whether I make a mistake or not, he still believes in me. Nothing ever wavers. That’s all you would want in a coach. Knowing that the guy that puts you in the game believes in you to the highest level, you can’t beat that.”

Nelson sat courtside Wednesday night wearing a custom-made shirt that had a photo of him side-by-side with a photo of Reynolds with a line of text that read: “Passing the torch.”

Lange was on Villanova’s coaching staff when Nelson and the Hawks were doing their thing, and Nelson became a household name as the 2004 national player of the year.

Nelson and Reynolds might both be small guards, but they aren’t all that similar, although Lange found a thread.

“I’m not a comparison guy,” he said. “I want everyone to have their unique journeys. Jameer’s journey and that team and that time is completely unique. It’s never happened again in St. Joe’s history. But I always look for common threads.”

This one is?

“Both guys came to St. Joe’s at a time where it was needed to build a bridge, to take the current state of the program and elevate it,” Lange said. “It’s not fair to compare what Erik has or has not done to what Jameer did or did not do as a player and a winner and a national player of the year. But when you just look at overall impact, Jameer helped a lot of great players want to come to school here because he was so good and so loyal.”

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Reynolds has had a similar impact. The roster St. Joe’s has constructed the last two seasons is partially because of Reynolds’ presence. Having NIL money helps, too, but good players tend to want to play with good players.

Reynolds said it was cool to play Wednesday in front of a legend like Nelson, who now is the general manager of the Delaware Blue Coats, the 76ers’ G League affiliate. He didn’t notice the shirt at first but saw it later. After the game, the two posed for photos in a hallway outside the St. Joe’s locker room.

Wednesday wasn’t just a night to celebrate Reynolds. It was a night to salute the player he passed on the scoring list.

“If you think about how many good players have been here for the last 20 years, for him to hold that record for as long as he did says a lot,” Lange said.

No one had a bigger crowd on senior night than Reynolds, whose crew could have filled a bus from Temple Hills to Hawk Hill.

Among the family members who showed up for Reynolds was his mother, Pamela, who was brought to tears a few times during the pregame celebration.

During Reynolds’ recruitment, Lange made sure to stress to Pamela and the rest of Reynolds’ family that his program was going to be family-oriented.

“When Billy said that, sold,” Pamela said. “That’s my man to this day. Billy is awesome on and off the court. I love that about Billy.

“It means a lot,” she said of Wednesday. “I’m so proud of my son, from AAU growing up. … ‘Mommy I’m not on the radar.’ Believe. That’s all I kept telling him, believe.”

About this season, Pamela said: “He finished what he started.”

“Erik has always been very humble, since he was 7 years old until this day,” she said. “He’s never been, ‘Oh, I’m like that.’ I’m not just saying that because that’s my son. He could’ve went to the powerhouse schools. One thing he told me: ‘Mom, money will find me.’”

To be clear, Reynolds isn’t playing for free at St. Joe’s, but the idea that he could have gone elsewhere after last season, and even the one before, for more money isn’t far-fetched.

Nights like Wednesday now are rarities in college basketball. How many players stay in the same place for four years? How many stars stay in the Atlantic 10 for four years?

» READ MORE: Erik Reynolds saw transfer portal door, ignored it to stay on Hawk Hill

“When you’re a coach,” Lange said, “or you’re an administrator, or a professor, or a university president, or a fan, and you’re like, ‘Man, I got to watch this guy grow for four years. I’ve seen the program completely transcended during his time here, and I get to see him do this.’ I don’t know if this is going to happen that much anymore. I really don’t.

“I hope a lot of people will appreciate how Erik has beaten this record. It’s been through loyalty, it’s been through player development, it’s been through body development, it’s been through resilience. It’s just so rare. We need to appreciate the person breaking the record as much as the record being broken.”

Lange had a chance to say some of those things to Reynolds on Tuesday during a team meeting. Reynolds has rarely talked about the record during this chase, but it started to hit him Tuesday.

“It’s insane,” Reynolds said. “To sum it up, that’s the one word I can give you. It means the world to me.”

Reynolds passed the 2,000-point mark during a Feb. 12 win over La Salle. Before the next home game, Reynolds was honored with a commemorative ball. He looked over at Lange during the ceremony and said: “Can you believe this?”

“He really believes that this a dream, to have done this at a really good program with a guy that he respects in Jameer and even Langston [Galloway], he’s just blown away by it,” Lange said. “I think he’s living a dream come true.

“I’ve told him this multiple times. I said, ‘Erik, my only wish is for you to see yourself the same way I see you.’”