How Villanova Guard Collin Gillespie Went From Unheralded Recruit To College Basketball All-American

In late December 2016, John Mosco was at the prestigious Slam Dunk at the Beach high school basketball event in Delaware when he heard from the Villanova men’s basketball coaching staff. The coaches of the reigning national champions told Mosco, the coach at Archbishop Wood High School in suburban Philadelphia, that they were interested in offering a scholarship to Collin Gillespie, a senior guard at Archbishop Wood.

Until that point, few Division 1 colleges, and none at the high-major level like Villanova, had extended an offer to Gillespie. And so, Mosco was excited to share the news with Gillespie and his parents.

“His mother was going crazy because it was Villanova, a big-time school, big-time coach, strong academically,” Mosco said. “His mother was like, ‘What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?’ (Gillespie) just sat there with a poker face and said, ‘I want to do what I did for the last 15, 16 years. I want to work out and get ready to win a Catholic League championship.’”

Today, that serious attitude and unflappable demeanor is apparent to anyone who has watched Gillespie play for the past five seasons at Villanova, where he has been part of a national championship team in 2018, won two Big East player of the year awards and become one of the top players in college basketball.

On Saturday, Gillespie will play in his 156th college game when Villanova faces Kansas in the Final Four in New Orleans. The winner faces Duke or North Carolina on Monday night for the championship.

This weekend serves as the culmination of Gillespie’s college career, a journey that no one could have envisioned when Gillespie was in high school. At Archbishop Wood, Gillespie split time between junior varsity and varsity as a freshman and started just seven games as a sophomore. He also played football during those first two years.

As a junior, Gillespie quit football and concentrated solely on basketball, and he averaged 11 points per game. After that season, he played for Team Final Black, a grassroots/AAU program that he had joined a few years earlier.

Still, Gillespie wasn’t on Team Final’s top team, which played in the prestigious Nike EYBL circuit and was among the nation’s best squads. That team featured Daron “Fatts” Russell, who would play at the University of Rhode Island and Maryland; Lonnie Walker, who played a year at the University of Miami before getting picked in the first round of the 2018 draft by the San Antonio Spurs; and Cam Reddish, who spent a year at Duke before the Atlanta Hawks selected him in the first round of the 2019 draft.

“For Collin’s development, we thought it would be better for him to be on Team Final Black,” said Rob Brown, Team Final’s co-founder and manager. “He just needed to learn how to play the (point guard) position. He was more of a shooter when he was younger and developed into a point guard as he got older.”

Brown remembers Gillespie’s improvement beginning late in his junior year after the high school season ended. That May, in a game between Team Final’s top team and Team Final Black, Gillespie made a halfcourt shot to send the game into overtime. Team Final Black ended up winning.

“I was sitting there like, ‘Man, he’s not intimidated by Daron or Cameron or Lonnie Walker at all,’” Brown said. “I was like, ‘This kid’s definitely Division 1. Why is nobody on him yet?’”

Over the next few weeks, Gillespie continued to shine in AAU events, and the University of Maine became the first Division 1 college to offer him a scholarship. But that summer, Gillespie sustained a knee injury and missed several tournaments where college coaches would have seen him play. Mosco, his Archbishop Wood coach, encouraged Gillespie to visit Maine and consider the school.

“He turned around to me and said, ‘I don’t like Maine. I want to bank on myself,’” Mosco said. “I was like, ‘Collin, you’re going to go to school for free.’ But he’s like, ‘No, I want to wait until the end of the year (to commit).’”

By the start of Gillespie’s senior year, he was fully healthy and playing better than ever. Other mid-major Division 1 colleges began showing interest. Ashley Howard, who was then a Villanova assistant, had heard from Mosco and others that he should take a look at Gillespie, as well.

After seeing Gillespie play a few times, Howard recommended that Villanova coach Jay Wright attend a game, too.

“It was more or less like, ‘Coach, I know this kid can play for us,’” Howard said. “Nobody else at our level was recruiting him so I didn’t want to jump all the way out of the car and say, ‘I’m putting my name on this one. This dude’s going to be an All-American one day.’”

He added: “The only thing I knew was this dude could be a Villanova basketball player. I knew he could dribble, pass, shoot. He was tough, he was intelligent, he was a leader, he was a coach on the floor.”

When Villanova started showing interest, other major programs like Virginia and Notre Dame began taking a look at Gillespie, but by then it was too late. Gillespie committed to Villanova on Jan. 14, 2017, less than three weeks after receiving the scholarship offer. Still, he didn’t make a big deal out of anything and didn’t tell his friends about the offer for several days.

“He wouldn’t even say anything about it,” said Keith Otto, Gillespie’s friend and Archbishop Wood teammate. “He was just straight-faced. It was like he was excited that he got it, but he knew he could play at that level. I think he was like, “It’s about time. I’ve earned this.’”

Later that month, Gillespie showed he could play on the big stage when he scored a career-high 42 points to lead Archbishop Wood to an 82-73 victory over Neumann-Goretti, a Philadelphia powerhouse. Gillespie outplayed Neumann-Goretti guard Quade Green, a McDonald’s All-American point guard who signed with Kentucky over Villanova and other top programs.

Archbishop Wood defeated Neumann-Goretti again that February and ended up winning its first Philadelphia Catholic League title as well as the Class 5A state championship. Gillespie was named the Catholic League’s most valuable player.

“His senior year of high school may be one of the most special and significant jumps from somebody as a junior to a senior that our city’s ever seen,” Howard said.

Still, Villanova planned on redshirting Gillespie as a freshman and taking him along slowly. After all, the Wildcats had a talented backcourt that included junior Jalen Brunson, who would become the 2018 national player of the year; Donte DiVincenzo, who was a first round pick in the 2018 NBA draft; and junior Phil Booth, one of the nation’s best defensive guards.

“He was going to take a redshirt year and then see how he fit in and hopefully, potentially contribute one day,” said Chris Roantree, who was then an assistant at Archbishop Wood and had coached Gillespie since sixth grade. “I remember going to a practice when he was a freshman and coach (Jay Wright) pulling me to the side and basically saying, ‘I can’t keep him off the court. He’s not going to redshirt. He’s doing great.’”

That season, Gillespie came off the bench and played about 14 minutes per game. During the NCAA tournament championship game, he scored four points and had five rebounds in 16 minutes as the Wildcats won their second national title in three seasons.

Since then, Gillespie has started all 123 games he’s appeared in the past four seasons and become the team’s leader. Last season, Gillespie was named the Big East’s co-player of the year, but he tore the medial collateral ligament in his left knee during an early March game against Creighton. That caused him to miss the Big East and NCAA tournaments and delay his plans of turning professional.

Instead, Gillespie decided to return to Villanova. After spending several months rehabilitating his injury, Gillespie has been better than ever this season, averaging a career-high 15.6 points per game, winning the Big East player of the year award again and leading Villanova to the Big East tournament title and another Final Four appearance.

Gillespie has joined a list of recent star Villanova point guards that includes Brunson and Ryan Arcidiacono, who led the Wildcats to the 2016 national title.

“They’re all completely different players, but I think the common bond is that they’re winners,” said Kyle Neptune, an assistant at Villanova from 2013 to 2021 who’s now the head coach at Fordham. “I would say no one through my time at Villanova was a better leader than Collin Gillespie. Maybe guys as good, but no one was a better leader just from the standpoint of being willing to speak up and own that role and have the guys’ respect in that role.

Neptune plans on being at the game on Saturday, as will Howard. Mosco and Roantree aren’t able to make it due to a prior commitment, but they will be in New Orleans on Monday if Villanova advances to the national title game.

All four men, along with countless others in the Philadelphia area, are rooting for Gillespie as his unlikely college career comes to an end.

“For Collin, to see where he’s taken his game, to see the leader he’s been within the Villanova program and how he’s developed is really special,” Howard said. “I’m happy for him. It couldn’t have happened to a better young man.”