‘Nova wins Big East but loses Gillespie
Even though the crowd was limited due to COVID-19 restrictions, a hush came over the Finneran Pavilion when Collin Gillespie went down in a heap with 6:38 to play in the first half of Villanova’s 72-60 victory over Creighton Wednesday night.
It was immediately evident that this was not an injury the tough-as-nails 6-3 guard could just shake off.
Gillespie writhed in pain for several seconds before hopping off the court on his right leg with his left folded. He then had to be helped to the locker room after being examined on the sideline.
A little while later, the television panned to teammate Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree in the stands and caught the injured center sitting with his hands folded in front of his face.
Cosby-Roundtree, who has been out all season following surgery on his shin, later tweeted, “Pray for Collin,” with a praying hands emoji.
“Our trainer said it looks pretty serious,” Wright said in a Zoom call after the game. “We can’t say what it is. He’s going to get an MRI (Thursday) morning, but he said it looks pretty serious. There was no chance of him returning
for the second half. That’s all we know. He’s not going to speculate, but I just want to be honest with you. He’s not saying he’ll be fine.”
Wright would not speculate on how long Gillespie will be out other than to say that Wright does not expect Gillespie to play in Saturday’s regular-season finale at Providence.
“This is tough on him but we’re going to try to focus on the positives of rehabbing or what he has to do,” Wright said.
Gillespie injured his left knee while defending Creighton’s Damien Jefferson on a play in the paint. He came down awkwardly. When he returned to the bench for the
second half, his left knee was wrapped in an ace bandage.
The injury took much of the luster off of what had been a championship-clinching victory by the Wildcats (16-4 overall, 11-3 Big East). Villanova built a 22-point lead in the second half and held off a late Creighton rally to win their seventh Big East regular-season title in the last eight years and their sixth outright.
“It’s obviously bittersweet,” Wright said.
While there is never a good time for an injury, this one could not have come at a worse time for Gillespie or the Wildcats. First, it happened on senior night and was the first time his parents were able to see him play in person at home because of Villanova did not allow spectators into the Pavilion due to the coronavirus pandemic. It
also came in the next-to-last game of the regular season, a week before the start of the Big East tournament and two weeks before the NCAA tournament.
Gillespie is Villanova’s unquestioned leader and one of the top guards in the country. The three-year captain is one of the five finalists for the Bob Cousy Award, given annually to the top point guard in the country and was having a career season and is expected to earn All-Big East honors when the team is announced next week.
Gillespie was averaging 14 points and 4.6 assist per game at the time of the injury. Coming into the game Gillespie was ranked 14th in the country in assist-turnover ratio (3.0).
“He’s tough to replace,” Wright said. “We’re going to have to grow up real quick
and guys are going to have to step up and I think they will.”
If Gillespie is out for an extended time or, possibly, the rest of the season, the point guard job will fall on the shoulders of Justin Moore. Wright expected the 6-4 sophomore to take over that role next season but that timetable will have to be moved up and Moore is up to the challenge.
“Every day in practice we play multiple positions,” Moore said. “I run the one. I run the two so we’re all interchangeable. We all work on our skills every day.”
Moore ran the point in the entire second half and scored 14 of his game-high 24 points to help the Wildcats hold off the Bluejays. He also had five assists and five rebounds. Moore was not in the game when Gillespie went down. Moore left 17 seconds earlier
after he picked up his second foul and spent the rest of the first half on the bench.
With Gillespie out and Moore in foul trouble, Wright turned to Jeremiah Robinson-Earl at the point and the 6-8 forward did a solid job. Villanova did not have a turnover with RobinsonEarl running the show. The sophomore had two of his five assists in that stretch to help the Wildcats take a 4223 lead into the locker room at halftime. Robinson-Earl posted his second straight double-double with 14 points and 14 rebounds.
“When we see something as devastating as that happen, we know we have to step up and play for him,” RobinsonEarl said. “We’re going to give it all for him because we know he gives it all for us.”
Villanova used runs of 17-2 and 10-3 to open up a
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42-23 lead at halftime. The Wildcats stretched that advantage to 57-35 before going scoreless for an 8:32 stretch. The Bluejays went on a 19-2 burst during that drought to get within 59-54 before Villanova closed the game on a 12-6 run … Brandon Slater also came up big for the Wildcats. He had 11 points, and five rebounds in 23 minutes off the bench … Sophomore Bryan Antoine also was solid. He hit his first 3-pointer of the season and finidhed with three points, one assist, one rebound and one steal in 10 minutes … Jermaine Samuels struggled with his shot for the second straight game. He was 3-for-11 overall and 1-for-5 from 3-point range to finish with seven points. However, he did dish out a teamhigh seven assists as the Wildcats had 21 helpers on 28 field goals.