ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON VILLANOVA.COM ON FEB. 4, 2025 | BY DANA O'NEIL

The sheet of paper is pinned next to his bedroom door, right where Jordan Longino can be sure to see it as he begins his day. It's covered in writing by now, cramped with his hopes, dreams and goals from as far back as 2021, when Longino began his basketball career at Villanova. 
 
Longino's father, Eric, suggested the idea back when Longino was in high school, encouraging all three of his kids to write down what they wanted to achieve - in part to perhaps manifest the universe into action but also to remind his children what they were working toward. 
 
Longino crosses out neither dreams realized nor dreams unfulfilled, instead keeping them all so he can see what it is he's been chasing. "This is the journey, right?" the senior says. 
 
Longino's journey has, by anyone's measurements, been arduous, pockmarked with injuries. His career has been one more of fitful stops and starts than smooth fluidity, the injury cycle curbing his playing time and challenging his confidence. 
 
For so long stuck in what felt like a never-ending cycle of trying to play to his full potential, he is finally realizing it. The player who struggled for so long to even get on the floor now averages the second most minutes per game (32.7) to Eric Dixon. He's nearly doubled his scoring output from a year ago (he averages 11.5 ppg now) and leads the team in steals. On Wednesday, he'll again be a focal point as the Wildcats look to bounce back from Saturday's final possession loss to Creighton at Wintrust Arena in Chicago against DePaul (9 p.m./CBS Sports Network and the Villanova Sports Network on IHeart).
 
That he has emerged so fully on the other side, not just healthy but also a respected and vital leader for the Wildcats, is a credit to his ability to keep his eyes on those goals, even when the focus got hazy. 
 
Longino isn't afraid of hard things. His father, Eric played hoops at SMU and his older brother, Evan-Eric, at Kutztown and West Chester. Together they made sure Longino always had a heavy dose of reality. They offered - and frankly, still do - honest critiques of his game, more apt to point out where he needs to improve rather than praise him for what he's done right. 
 
Growing up, Evan-Eric schooled him in driveway one-on-one games. The two went at it hard enough that their mom, Tanya, would require a peace treaty during meals. "She'd say, 'We are not talking about whatever happened out there,'' Longino says with a laugh. "Obviously we never listened.'' Longino insists he started to get the better of Evan-Eric once he hit a growth spurt but also admits that Evan-Eric would no doubt refute that claim, given the chance to defend himself. Either way, the tough love that only a big brother can deliver taught Longino how to handle physicality and welcome challenge.
 
He took that mentality to the football field at Germantown Academy, where the quarterback was never one to shy away from contact. In fact, his coaches eventually yanked him from playing defensive back, worried that Longino's fearlessness might compromise their star quarterback's health and safety.  Because Longino was worth protecting.  
 
In his junior year, he threw for nearly 2,000 yards and 16 touchdowns and rushed for 277 yards and six more scores.  Longino was good enough to draw interest from Division I schools and eventually, he had to chose between the court and the gridiron. He struggled, because of his first love for football (he remains a committed NFL and college football fan; the Eagles and Penn State are his teams) but the choice became clearer as Longino's success on the court grew. He left Germantown as the all-time leading scorer for the boys, besting his own coach and Villanova star Alvin Williams for the top spot. 
 
Longino packaged all of that - his willingness to do hard things, his growing basketball toolbox and his sheet of paper, littered with his dreams and aspirations - to Villanova. He was greeted with a whole new kind of hard
 
His freshman campaign was cruelly bookended by injuries. In September, before his college career even began, Longino injured his knee, taking him out of critical preseason practice for three weeks. And then in March, just as the Wildcats set off for what would be a Final Four run, he tore his meniscus. 
 
He spent all summer working to recover, hoping to finally show what he was capable of as a sophomore. And he did. He earned his way into the rotation as a sophomore, bumping up his playing time steadily as he contributed 6.9 points and 2.3 rebounds per game. And then in January, he injured his hamstring. Out for five weeks, he sat out most practices even after he was cleared to play and through, he returned to the lineup, he was never quite himself. 
 
Finally, as a junior, he played the duration of the regular season, working his way into the starting rotation by December. In a Big East Tournament game against DePaul, he dropped nine in the first half before exiting the game with another knee injury. 
 
As one injury begat the next, Longino's goal list started to read more like a wish list. He tried to stay upbeat but he also was logging more hours with Dan Erickson, the team's athletic trainer, than his own teammates. Rehab is lonely, done in the privacy of the training room while everyone else goes off to practice. Success is measured in baby steps, and frankly not always easy to discern. "Of course, there were days that I felt like, 'I don't want to do this rehab again. I don't want to see Dan again,'' he says. "I mean, Dan is my guy but sometimes you don't want to spend every day with Dan.'' 
 
There was no magic elixir to make him healthy, nor no simple solution to keeping his focus. It required diligence, persistence and patience, often in short supply in the rushed lifespan of a college athlete. Longino leaned on his family and his teammates. Largely he just did the work. 
 
This summer, finally knowing he had a full off-season to prepare, Longino was naturally anxious to make up for lost time. "My coaches reminded me that this one season is not the end-all, be all of your career,'' he says. "Everything you do isn't going to be the last thing you do in basketball. Having that mindset really helped.'' 
 
The coaches especially needed Longino to breathe this season because despite his own limited time, he was now a Villanova veteran, and would be asked to shoulder all that came with it. Longino is the first to admit that's not a role that comes naturally to him. Despite his alpha role as a quarterback and high school basketball star, he is not a rah-rah guy. Yet he and Dixon, who is also naturally quiet, were the only two players returning with any sort of legit playing time in a Villanova jersey. The two had no choice but to become the team's leaders.
 
Conscious of the expectation and aware that it wasn't in their nature, the two met once Dixon decided to return. "This new landscape is tough,'' Longino says. "You have a lot of new guys all trying to fit under one culture. So we wanted to sit down face to face, and make sure we step out of our comfort zones to be good leaders.'
 
If that sounds like something Longino might have added to that sheet of paper, he's not telling. He prefers to keep his actual goals to himself and pinned next to the door. 
 
Right where only he can see them and hopefully now, finally accomplish them.