Villanova held on to beat Creighton Wednesday night, claiming its seventh Big East title in eight years, but the big win and the accomplishment came with a hefty cost, as Collin Gillespie suffered a knee injury in the first half.
Gillespie didn’t return in the second half, and after the game Jay Wright categorized the injury as “serious.” “Our trainer said it looks pretty serious,” Wright said. “We can’t say what it is, we’re gonna get an MRI tomorrow morning. But he said it looks pretty serious so there was no chance at all of him returning for the second chance. That’s all we know, he’s not gonna speculate but I’m gonna be honest with you, he’s not saying he’s gonna be fine, it’s pretty serious.”
As hard as it is, we’ll do our best to wait for the results of the MRI before considering the impacts of the injury, but it’s impossible not to feel awful for Gillespie. Not only was he having a stellar season, earning a spot among the finalists for the Bob Cousy Award, but he was just days away from entering postseason play after missing out on it last season due to the pandemic. When you add in the fact that it’s his senior year and how much he means to this team and this program, it’s truly devastating.
“They were devastated at first,” Wright said of Gillespie’s teammates. “But the competitors that they are, I think they stepped up and took on the challenge. They want that challenge. There’s something in players that they hurt for their teammate but then they know that more responsibility is put on them and they all like it, they all want it. And we gotta keep that going now consistently.”
“They’re tough guys and they’re smart guys but they were down and then they started pumping each other up,” Wright continued. “Collin is, there’s probably not one player that’s had such an impact on a team in a year as Collin does here. 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 gonna have to grow up real quick and guys are gonna have to step up and I think they will.”
“It’s tough because we know how much dedication he has in Villanova basketball and that he’s put forth for his four years that he’s been here, and we all look to him as a leader,” Jeremiah Robinson-Earl said. “So, when something as devastating as that happens, we know we have to step up and play for him, we go out there and just play a full 40 minutes and know that we’re gonna give it all for him because he gives it all for us.”
“We all, at halftime, came in and dapped him up, gave him a hug, said we love you, we’re praying for you, then we got back to focusing on what we gotta do out there on the court,” Justin Moore said. “Everybody was just focused on stepping up. And saying ‘attitude’, let’s do it for our brother. And we came together and said let’s do it for him, let’s come out there and play hard.”
Gillespie’s loss clearly reverberated not only through the team and the staff but through ‘Nova Nation as a whole. It’s a testament to what he’s meant to the program and everything he’s given to the program.
“You just love the kid so much,” Wright said. “This is big for him, he was having an incredible senior year, he’s our leader, he missed the NCAA tournament last year he’s looking to have a big-time tournament, I think he’s a pro prospect and all these things, this is tough on him.”
