Villanova’s Collin Gillespie named Big East player of the year

Collin Gillespie may have clinched the Big East player of the year award the same moment he drilled a last-minute, game-clinching three-pointer last month at Providence, the night he scored 33 points.

Gillespie was the Big East favorite all along, as soon as he committed to return to Villanova for this season. He was the preseason choice for player of the year, and Wednesday, that prediction proved accurate. Villanova’s point guard was officially named conference player of the year, voted by the coaches.

It was the first outright win for Gillespie, after sharing that honor last season with teammate Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Seton Hall’s Sandro Mamukelashvili. That makes Gillespie the sixth multiyear winner of the award, and the first for Villanova, joining Chris Mullin, Patrick Ewing, Richard Hamilton, Troy Murphy, and Kris Dunn.

Gillespie also was named Big East scholar-athlete of the year, third in history to win both of the awards in the same season. The awards were announced at Madison Square Garden as the Big East Tournament got going with first-round games. Villanova plays Thursday at 7 p.m. against the winner of Wednesday’s St. John’s-DePaul game.

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“It is a true honor,” Gillespie said at the ceremony, thanking his coaches for “the wild, fun ride,” his family, his teammates, “who push me to be the best version of myself ... Just can’t wait to get back on the floor tomorrow.”

Gillespie averaged 16.3 points and 3.1 assists, making 91.5% of his free throws and 43.1% of his three-pointers, both career highs.

“It’s great to have a guy like him who has been there and done that, who is a special player and a special leader for us,” said Villanova teammate Justin Moore about Gillespie, who was named first-team all-Big East, while Moore was named to the second team.

Ed Cooley was presumably the runaway winner for coach of the year after the Friars took the Big East regular season.

Villanova swept the basketball honors in the league this season, with Maddy Siegrist earlier named women’s player of the year, the first time the school won the men’s and women’s award in the same season.

Gillespie actually hasn’t played in a Big East Tournament game since 2019, since the 2020 tournament was canceled because of the pandemic and Gillespie’s 2020-21 season ended just before the conference tournament.

“I just had [knee] surgery the day before the game,” Gillespie said of missing last season. “I was at home.”

Of being back for one last Garden appearance, Gillespie said, “It’s special. I’m just super grateful to be able to go back and play with my teammates and my coaches. It’s been awhile.”

“It’s funny, we were just talking about that coming off the practice court, kind of joking with Collin about being the old man,” Jay Wright said Tuesday afternoon. “But after he left and we busted his chops, we all looked at each other and said, ‘Thank God we have him.’”

Wright was asked this week about how Villanova, ranked eighth in the Associated Press poll, and projected to be a high seed in the NCAA Tournament, views the Big East tourney. He said he actually had that conversation this week with Mark Few, coach of top-ranked Gonzaga.

“What else would we be doing?” Wright said. “We’d be practicing. What are you trying to do when you practice? You try to get better. Every chance we play gives us a chance to get better.”

Wright has always talked about the Big East Tournament being a magic thing in itself — “you feel the vibe as soon as you get in the city.”

But, Wright said, one of his early years, he remembers sitting next to Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun at the banquet held the night before the tournament, Calhoun saying to him, “You know kid, this tournament is nice, but it isn’t the one that counts. The next one counts.”

Wright said it kind of shocked him.

“We use the term be here now,” Wright said. “I never want to think ahead because the NCAA Tournament is great, but I think the Big East Tournament rivals it in so many ways. You want to enjoy every opportunity you get in the Big East Tournament.”

Wright also noted how in 2016, Seton Hall beat Villanova in the conference tournament by isolating Jalen Brunson defensively.

“No one had done that to us before,” Wright said. “And they beat us. Now going into the NCAA Tournament, we knew that we had to be prepared for this. We’ve always looked back on that — if we didn’t learn in that game, we might not have won a national championship. So they’re all opportunities to learn and get better.”

Of course, Brunson was a freshman that season. Gillespie is in his fifth season. They were teammates in 2018 when Gillespie was a freshman, when Brunson was Big East player of the year.

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