‘He’s one of the keepers of the flame’: Villanova’s Eric Dixon is becoming the best version of himself

During a preseason practice last year, Eric Dixon let a shot fly from beyond the three-point arc.

Former Villanova basketball coach Jay Wright wasn’t mad about the shot ― heck, he once compared Dixon’s shooting potential to that of 2016 NCAA title game hero Kris Jenkins — but he wanted to use it as a teaching moment.

“We don’t want you shooting that shot yet,” Wright told Dixon, then a redshirt sophomore, putting emphasis on the last word.

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It wasn’t that Dixon wasn’t a proficient shooter. The Abington High grad shot plenty of three-pointers in high school — around 200 or so, Abington coach Charles Grasty told The Inquirer via telephone this week.

It was more that Villanova, with four good shooters surrounding Dixon in a starting unit that went on to reach the Final Four, didn’t need Dixon to take that shot, especially not early in a shot clock and especially not often.

The yet in Wright’s response was doing a lot of work. It was supposed to. That Eric Dixon was Eric Dixon 2.0, a player whose development was going to be tested, really tested, for the first time. He had done what many before him had when he arrived on campus, taking a redshirt season to work on his body and his skills. He played sparingly as a reserve during the 2020-21 season (8.2 minutes per game) and was going to be starting for the first time.

Fast-forward to March 20, 2022. It’s late in a Round-of-32 game vs. Ohio State. The Wildcats are up five, but two minutes have lapsed without either team scoring, and the game needs a moment. Collin Gillespie backs his man down toward the basket as Dixon sets a screen on the perimeter for Justin Moore. Dixon’s defender isn’t even paying attention to him. He’s under the rim, waiting to help when Gillespie makes his move. Gillespie whips a pass out to a wide-open Dixon stationed behind the three-point line. He catches, shoots, swishes, and sends Villanova to the Sweet 16.

He didn’t shoot a lot of threes last season, but Dixon, who averaged 9.1 points and 6.4 rebounds, made 48.6% (17) of his 35 attempts (0.9 attempts per game).

We’re only three games into the 2022-23 season, with Wright gone and Kyle Neptune now in charge, and Dixon has already shot seven times from deep. He made 2 of 4 in a season-opening win over La Salle, went 0-for-2 in a loss to Temple, and knocked down his only three-pointer during Monday’s 60-50 win over Delaware State.

Dixon is shooting more, period, not just from beyond the arc. He’s averaging 14.3 shots per game, up from 6.8 last season.

Part of that is because Villanova is dealing with injuries to two starters, Moore (Achilles) and top freshman Cam Whitmore (thumb). The other part is that we’ve arrived at Eric Dixon 3.0.

“This is why we recruited him,” said Neptune. “This is what we envisioned.”

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Growing up three blocks away from your high school coach has its perks. Especially when a pandemic brings on a quarantine period and there aren’t many open basketball courts around.

Grasty, the Abington High coach who helped Dixon become a 2,000-point scorer in high school, has a court in his backyard. So Dixon would text his Willow Grove neighbor and former coach that he was coming over to work out at various times. He wasn’t alone. Former Abington players Lucas Monroe, now at Penn, and Robbie Heath, who played at Pepperdine, would be there, too.

“It was great,” Grasty said. “I could just take my son out in the backyard and see how hard they’re working.”

There aren’t many who work harder than Dixon. Chris Arcidiacono, Dixon’s Villanova teammate and high school opponent (Neshaminy), says Dixon might be the hardest worker he’s been around in three-plus seasons at Villanova.

Grasty sees it, too. He remembers when Dixon, who is listed at 6-foot-8, 255 pounds, used to be able to eat whatever he wanted to. Times changed. Dixon’s first task as a redshirt was to work on his body. There were a lot of salads.

Even a few years later, Grasty is still impressed. He saw Dixon after the La Salle game last week (20 points, a career-high 17 shot attempts) and the first thing he told him was how good his body looked.

“Once he got to school, it clicked that he had to work a lot harder,” Grasty said. “Not saying he didn’t work hard in high school, but he was so good and so dominant that he could get away with some of those things.”

Grasty said he’s also seen Dixon become more mature and develop as a man. Dixon still comes back to Abington from time to time and talks to the current players.

“To have our family and the community turn on the TV and see all his hard work paying off, our community is super proud, super happy,” Grasty said.

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Asked to compare the Abington version of himself to this version of himself, the player and the person, Dixon pointed to things like discipline, pride in his defense, and pride in “getting stops.”

Like many Villanova stars before him, Dixon, a preseason second-team All-Big East selection, doesn’t like to talk himself up. He does, though, have a pretty good sense of how he got here and how it all happened. He said he would go through those redshirt workouts and think about the players who sat out before him. The list included NBA players Eric Paschall, Mikal Bridges, and Donte DiVincenzo.

“I’m not the first guy that’s gone through and done this in this program,” Dixon said. “That’s just kind of what this program is, a bunch of guys who just work hard. Everyone’s path is different, and this just happens to be mine.”

Right now, it’s paying off. With Moore and Whitmore out, Dixon has been a steadying presence on offense. While his team struggled to shoot in a game vs. Delaware State on Monday, Dixon dominated inside with 17 points. Through three games, Dixon is leading the Wildcats in scoring at 18.3 points per game.

Is this the best he’s ever felt on the basketball court? Dixon didn’t take the bait to praise himself. He did, though, shed light on how he’s a different version.

“It’s funny,” Dixon said. “I’m at a spot in my career where, seeing [freshman] Brendan Hausen come in [Monday night] and we’re on the defensive end, trying to get a stop and he looks over at me like, ‘E, get in a stance, let’s get a stop.’ I’m like, OK, yeah, let’s do it.’

“I’m ready to go. But him being so locked into it, it just reminds you how special this place really is.”

Extra special for guys like Dixon, who have seen it in every form.

“He’s done it all,” Neptune said. “He’s been a player that didn’t play at all. He’s been a player that played spot minutes. He’s been a player who has gotten things done in big games.

“In this program, once you’ve been a part of a team and gotten things done in live action, we think about it like, ‘All right, this dude is a player and now he’s one of the keepers of the flame and it’s his job to make sure the younger guys know what it is to be a competitor in this program.’”