Good vibes on Hawk Hill start with Lynn Greer III

Picture this: Postgame press conference, Lafayette dispatched by St. Joseph’s in the season opener. Erik Reynolds II, the Hawks’ top scorer, got to the podium first. He kept walking to the end.

“Point guard goes in the middle,” Reynolds said, leaving that chair for Lynn Greer III, with sophomore forward Rasheer Fleming joining them.

If the idea is that Greer is in the middle of everything, that’s how it had played out inside Hagan Arena. Greer’s stat line was indicative — 15 points, four assists, one turnover, two steals — but didn’t tell the whole story.

Reynolds told more of it.

» READ MORE: St. Joe's pulls away to beat Lafayette

Like his own spree that ended matters in the second half. The Hawks had been up, 51-40, Leopards barely lurking after the Hawks got hot right after halftime. Reynolds hit a three-pointer with 10 minutes, 50 seconds left. Then there was a flagrant foul on Lafayette, Reynolds making two free throws. St. Joe’s kept possession. Off the inbounds, Greer got Reynolds the ball. So five points in three seconds, eight points in 63 seconds, all by Reynolds.

Hawks up, 59-42. Game over.

That flagrant foul, what happened there?

“Oh, well, there are a lot of things that happened on that play,” Reynolds said after the 81-60 victory, ticking off an elbow to his head and a held jersey as he tried to run off a screen. “I pulled my hands up and ran through it, and [the defender] just stopped and fell, so I was still standing up, I tried to run over him. He grabbed my leg. That’s how I ended up on the ground. When the refs went over and reviewed it, that’s what they saw.”

This is where Greer comes in.

“I barely get mad,” Reynolds said.

“I get mad for him,” Greer said.

“Me and him had a conversation on the side,” Reynolds said of talking to Greer as the refs paused to review the play. “He just pushed me a little more. I like to say he put a battery in my back and charged me up.”

“I just always tell E, he’s a scorer — he can score the ball whenever he wants to,” Greer said. “We don’t honestly care what shots he takes for the most part, at all actually. … I just tell him, whoever is in front of him, just kill him. I get on him, like, ‘Bro, you’re passing the ball too much. Go shoot the ball.’ He always gets in his bag, ‘OK, I got you.’”

“That’s why I love him as my point guard,” Reynolds said after his 18-point night.

» READ MORE: Villanova's depth, talent easy to see in win over American

Bigger tests lie ahead, but there are real expectations on Hawk Hill this season for the first time in, well, quite some time. Center Christ Essandoko sat out with a toe sprain suffered in a scrimmage, but you’ll see what he can do soon enough. Cam Brown is a do-everything type, and does it efficiently. Fleming is now a huge part of things, a forward with a big skill set, recruited “off the layup line” at Camden High, as former Hawks assistant John Griffin put it last season. A strong freshman class provides real depth.

Just don’t underestimate the importance of Greer, son of the former Temple great, who has had outsized expectations since early in his high school career at Roman Catholic. Through a semester of limited play at Dayton and a slow start to his Hawks career after transferring home, you wondered if maybe the expectations were too high.

It was easy to imagine the Hawks turning to the next big thing, giving the ball right away to another Roman guard, freshman Xzayvier Brown, who plays fast and smart. (Reynolds was savvy enough to follow Brown down the court on a second-half break, getting the ball back for a quick-trigger made three.) Except shiny new things aren’t generally the way you win in college hoops. Those are the extras.

Veteran savvy is what takes you further.

It all seems so different than a year ago. Greer got past the 3-for-32 three-point start to his Hawks tenure, those misses extending into January of last season. A 5-for-6 deep shooting game against Loyola on Jan. 14 ignited him and he hit 26 of 55 threes (47.3%) for the rest of the 2022-23 season.

Greer looks in terrific shape. He took two catch-and-shoot threes Monday, made them both. His overall stat line made him the KenPom.com MVP of the game.

Put it this way: He now is the player he always seemed destined to be.

“One, Lynn’s a great player,” said Hawks coach Billy Lange. “I mean, he’s one of the all-time leading scorers in the history of arguably the best high school basketball conference in the country. He can play.”

He’s not the type to wow you with crazy athleticism. But there’s a kind of fearlessness to his game right now. He’ll get into the lane, putting pressure on a defense.

“A lot of times, when a kid is that high up, it’s easy to pick at him if he doesn’t be what everybody thinks he should be at the time,” Lange said. “Lynn just keeps working. He’s competitive. He’s a winner. He’s got the confidence of the staff and his teammates. He just keeps going.”

“I would just say it carried over from last year,” Greer said of his confidence level. “Once I kind of got in my groove, I just kept my head down and kept working. My teammates believed in me. That was really big. [My] coach believes in me. That all helped.”

Greer added, “And my dad, too. Shout-out to my dad.”

» READ MORE: Meet Phil Martelli, acting head coach. Actually, meet both of them.

His teammates get the ball in a position to do damage. Like the time in the first half, Greer drove and saw Fleming cutting to the hoop. A quick flip … big jam, Hawk Hill rocking.

A signal there, Fleming was asked, or just eye contact?

“I’m interested to hear this one,” Greer said.

“I think it’s eye contact,” Fleming said. “I see how he kind of picks the ball up a little bit, and then he just …”

Then the ball is up there.

“What I see is his eyes,” Greer said. “His eyes get real big. I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, he wants me to throw it to him.’”

“Yeah,” Fleming confirmed.

“Sheer is a freak athlete,” Greer said. “He doesn’t even know he’s a freak athlete.”

And Greer is a guy articulating to his own teammates what they can do during a basketball game that can bend toward the special. Then he can help make it happen. It’s a good vibe starting out the season on Hawk Hill.

It starts with the guy with the ball. The point guard goes in the middle.