It was Collin Gillespie, again and again, coming through for Villanova in the Big East title game | Mike Sielski
He had 17 points, hit two clutch three-pointers, and continued to fashion one of the great careers in Wildcats history. His greatness, like the program's, has become routine.
NEW YORK — Time and time again Saturday night, with the Big East Tournament championship in the balance, Collin Gillespie found himself staring down an opponent tall enough to blot out the basket. Ryan Kalkbrenner, Creighton’s sophomore center, is a 7-foot-1 beach umbrella with elbows. He scored 19 points, had eight rebounds and three blocked shots, and generally was the biggest impediment, in every regard, to Villanova’s winning, 54-48, and capturing the program’s fifth BET title since Jay Wright became its coach.
Yet time and time again, Gillespie coaxed Kalkbrenner into guarding him one-on-one, dribbling into the lane, dribbling out again, facing him at the top of the key, sizing him up, his eyes wide. Gillespie is 6-3, and he sought out this matchup, had Kalkbrenner where he wanted him, had the advantage over a defender who dwarfed him. In one startling sequence, Gillespie yo-yo’d Kalkbrenner from the key to the lane and back again, all to kick out a pass to Caleb Daniels for a three-pointer.
Now here was Villanova, down one, shooting terribly all night, less than three minutes left in regulation, and Gillespie rose up and swished a three over Kalkbrenner. Then, on the next possession, he did it again. The Wildcats were up five. Madison Square Garden was charged and roaring. And on their sideline, Jay Wright wasn’t joyful or unsurprised by what Gillespie — the conference’s two-time player of the year, a three-time champion in this tournament, this tournament’s most valuable player — had done. He was relieved. Seventeen points Saturday for Gillespie, none more important than those two shots, those two moments that let the Wildcats breathe, finally.
» READ MORE: Villanova wins Big East championship over Creighton, 54-48
“I can’t ever say I expect it,” Wright said after he and his team had cut down the Garden’s nets and been showed in red, white, and blue confetti. “I’m a pessimist in my mind. I’m still kind of surprised when he makes those plays. It’s incredible.”
Gillespie isn’t the best Villanova player ever, but it’s safe to say now that his career is unique in the program’s history. No one has played more games, and no great player has done more, developed more, to attain his greatness. He was not a ballyhooed recruit out of Archbishop Wood, for all the reasons steeped in stereotypes. Too small. Too slow. A low D-I kid at best. And by the end of his freshman season, he was a contributor off the bench to the Wildcats’ 2018 national-championship club, to maybe the most dominant NCAA Tournament team of the last quarter-century, and he has only ascended since.
Little more than a year ago, he tore his left medial collateral ligament — in a victory over Creighton — and a month ago, he badly sprained his ankle in a win over Connecticut. The toll that these last two years have taken on his body have been steep, and mostly out of the public’s eye. “I was exhausted,” he said, but that description of his condition in the final seconds Saturday didn’t come close to describing what Wright called his journey.
“I don’t want to be dramatic,” Wright continued, “but what he had to go through in the offseason … He was still going to rehab all summer. He didn’t start playing until late August, and I could tell he wasn’t 100 percent yet. Then with the ankle injury. He’s as mentally tough as anybody we’ve had.”
That is no tepid compliment from Wright, from a coach who’s had Randy Foye and Kyle Lowry and Ryan Arcidiacono and Jalen Brunson, tough guards all. And he puts Gillespie right up there with them. Arcidiacono, recently having signed with the Knicks, was at the Garden on Saturday, celebrating with his old teammate Kris Jenkins — the two players responsible for one of the timeless plays in college basketball, for the national-title buzzer-beater in 2016, on hand to see Gillespie and this team continue the Wildcats’ remarkable run.
“I’m just so happy for C, man,” said Jenkins, who was the last player before Gillespie to wear No. 2 for Villanova. “He’s done so much for the program, for him to wear No. 2 after I did and to take it to new heights and to be a good dude while he’s doing it.”
» READ MORE: Villanova’s comeback over St. John’s shows these Wildcats still have the quality that makes them great | Mike Sielski
The connections were everywhere again Saturday night, for a program whose excellence has become as close to routine as anything gets in this sport, for the latest player to embody what Jay Wright has achieved on the Main Line. This time, it was Creighton and a 7-footer having a marvelous game standing in the Wildcats’ way. And in response, until victory for Villanova on the Big East’s biggest stage was assured, it was Collin Gillespie, as usual, time and time again.