DETROIT—It was Wednesday on a trip to a T. J. Maxx in Philadelphia when it finally hit Scottie Reynolds: Villanova was going to the Final Four and he was the reason why.

Reynolds went to pick up a few T-shirts for the trip to Detroit when he was bombarded by fans.

“It took me 15 minutes to get out of there,” he said. “I was at the cash register signing autographs and it was unbelievable that the Villanova community had so much support behind us.”

The Wildcats (30-7) are here thanks to Reynolds, who joined the lengthy pantheon of last-second clutch performances in NCAA Tournament history. In the East Regional final last week against No. 1 seed Pittsburgh, Dante Cunningham snared a lob pass from Reggie Redding, handed off the hook and ladder to Reynolds and watched him make a three-quarters-court dash toward glory.

Reynolds finished his sprint with a challenging floater over Gilbert Brown with half a second left that propelled Villanova into a national semifinal matchup against No. 1 seed North Carolina (32-4).

“A lot of people are asking coach [Jay Wright], ‘Can we have that play? Can we have that set up?’ ” said Reynolds, a 6-foot-2 junior guard from Herndon, Va. “Honestly, it’s something that we do every day in practice and he puts us in position where we can go out there and make basketball plays.”

The first option was for Reynolds to get the ball on the inbounds from Redding, but Pitt denied it. Redding then threw a long pass near mid-court to Cunningham, who quickly found Reynolds without a Panther in front of him.

“Reggie had the confidence in Dante, Dante had the confidence in me, and my teammates had the confidence that I would make the right play whether it was a shot for me or a shot for the team,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds’ route to Final Four glory has been as tricky as his shot over Brown. A McDonald’s All-American, he originally signed with Oklahoma but when Kelvin Sampson left for Indiana and was replaced by Jeff Capel he switched to Villanova. He calls that one of the toughest decisions in his life. When he announced he was attending Villanova, Reynolds broke down and cried.

“When [Capel] got the job, we talked every day about what it was going to be and how we were going to do it,” Reynolds said. “He kept saying, ‘I want guys here who are going to be 100 percent, those are the only guys I want.’ I was hearing that for 20 days and I got the feeling if I can’t be 100 percent in and be fully committed to that, I don’t want to waste his time and tear something apart he’s trying to build.”

At first, Reynolds was a stranger at Villanova. He hadn’t built a relationship with Wright but was comfortable with former assistant coach Ed Pinckney. Reynolds didn’t buy into the team concept, or the big picture, immediately.

“I didn’t know who to trust; I didn’t have a trust factor,” said Reynolds, who scored 2,306 points in his high school career, at the time seventh in Virginia public school history. “It takes a long time for me to trust someone, let alone someone who I’m putting my career in their hands. It took a while for me to take pride in Villanova basketball.”

That was before former player Mike Nardi pulled him to the side. Nardi told him this is about protecting a legacy started by players like Paul Arizin, Chris Ford, Bill Melchionni and Rory Sparrow. This is bigger than Reynolds and not something to be taken lightly.

“Mike taught me how to be a Villanova guard,” Reynolds said. “I take great pride in passing that on to the guys below me.”

During the difficult times of his freshman season, Reynolds leaned on Gary Hall, his high school coach at Herndon High School in Virginia.

“Suck it up,” Hall told him. “I don’t care what you’re doing or what’s going on, you better suck that up.”

It’s a relationship Reynolds respects, much like the one he now shares with Wright.

“Me and coach Wright’s relationship has been bumpy and tough but we’re both competitors and I think that’s what we love about each other,” he said. “The biggest compliment you can give a player is giving him the ball at the end of the game and letting him make the right plays and the right decisions.”

Like last week when Reynolds put Villanova on the cusp of its first national championship in 24 seasons.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” Reynolds said. “I think the fact of us getting out of Philly and getting back to what we do, and that’s being together and kind of isolated from everybody, and focusing on us and focusing on UNC will help us the next few days.”