Villanova’s Collin Gillespie is diagnosed with a torn ligament in his left knee, expected to miss the rest of the season

The news came back Thursday about Villanova point guard Collin Gillespie’s knee injury, and it wasn’t good.

Villanova’s senior leader tore the medial collateral ligament in his left knee in the first half of Wednesday night’s win over Creighton and is expected to miss the remainder of the season, the program announced. The diagnosis was confirmed during an MRI performed Thursday.

“We are all devastated for Collin,” Villanova head coach Jay Wright said in a statement. “He is the heart and soul of our program. We know we can’t replace him. We all just want to step up and play so that we honor him.

“Collin is as mentally tough and resilient as any player we have had here. I know he will get through this and make it a positive for his career.”

The 6-foot-3 Gillespie, the team leader on and off the court, suffered the injury when he got tangled up with Creighton’s Damien Jefferson near the basket. He left the court in obvious pain with 6 minutes, 38 seconds remaining in the first half of the Cats’ 72-60 victory at Finneran Pavilion.

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Whether Gillespie returns to take the extra year of eligibility allowed by the NCAA because of the pandemic will be open to speculation. But if he decides to pass on it, he will leave with many notable achievements, the most important being his key reserve role on the Wildcats’ 2018 national championship team.

Gillespie, a graduate of Archbishop Wood High School, earned second-team All-Big East honors last season and was a first-team selection on the 2020-21 pre-season all-conference squad. This season, he also is a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award given to the nation’s top point guard.

In 20 games this season, he has averaged 14.0 points, 4.6 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game while his 2.9 assist-to-turnover ratio ranks second in the Big East. He leads the Wildcats in assists, free-throw shooting and minutes played, and is their most prolific three-point shooter.

He played in his 118th career game Wednesday night and Villanova won for the 94th time.

But it’s what Gillespie does in practice and off the court that endears him to his coaches and teammates.

“There’s probably not been one player that’s had such an impact on a team in a year as Collin does here,” Wright said after the win over Creighton. “He’s our spiritual leader. Work ethic, he’s our leader. Character-wise he’s our leader, on the court he is. He’s tough to replace. We’re going to have to grow up real quick.

“He’s had an incredible senior year. He’s our leader. I know he missed the NCAA tournament last year. He’s looking to have a big-time tournament. I think he’s a pro prospect, all these things. This is tough on him. We’re going to try to focus on the positives and take on this next challenge of rehabbing or whatever he’s going to have to do.”

Teammate Jeremiah Robinson-Earl said the mission after Gillespie went down was to “know that we’re going to give it all for him because he gives it all for us.

“It’s tough because we know how much dedication he has to Villanova basketball and what he’s put forth for the four years that he’s been here,” he said. “We all look to him as a leader so when we see something as devastating as that happen, we just know we’ve got to step up and play for him.”

The Wildcats will have to adjust with Gillespie out, starting with Saturday’s regular-season finale at Providence.

Sophomore Justin Moore, who plays the point when Gillespie goes to the bench for a rest, will be full-time at the position. Guards Caleb Daniels and Bryan Antoine will be asked to play the lead role on occasion.

The 6-foot-9 Robinson-Earl also can contribute. He received experience playing the point in competition for the final 6:38 of the first half with Gillespie injured and Moore on the bench with two personal fouls.

“Honestly, I wasn’t prepared but we’re always prepared for the most difficult situations,” Robinson-Earl said. “We’ve done it before in practice but we weren’t like coming into the game, ‘Oh J-Rob, you’re going to run the 1.’ But we’ve just always got to be ready for every situation and just execute what Coach tells us.”

Moore says he’s ready to take over the point, a position he’s played frequently at practice.

“Every day in practice we play multiple positions,” he said. “I run the 1, I run the 2, the 3, so we’re all interchangeable. We all work on our skills each and every day. Me and Collin compete in practice, he’s at the 1, I’m at the 1, we switch off and on. So we’re all capable of stepping up, just like J-Rob stepped up and played the 1 for us.”

Moore came up with one of his best scoring games of the season Wednesday night, accounting for 24 points on 9-of-12 shooting with three three-pointers, to go with five rebounds and five assists while playing the entire second half at the point.