NEW YORK – (Staff Report from Official News Release) – Villanova graduate guard Collin Gillespie was named the 2021-2022 Big East Player of the Year. Gillespie, who shared the award in 2020-2021 with his Villanova teammate Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Seton Hall’s Sandro Mamukelashvili, is the first repeat winner of the award since Providence’s Kris Dunn in 2014-2015 and 2015-2016.
Gillespie led the Wildcats to a 16-4 record in Big East play with 16.1 points and 3.1 assists per game. He was the fourth leading scorer in the league, trailing only DePaul’s Javon Freeman-Liberty, St. John’s Julian Champagnie and Marquette’s Justin Lewis.
Gillespie led the Big East in free throw percentage, at a 91.5% clip, and three-point percentage, at 43.1%. He was sixth in the league in field goal percentage, making 44.7% of his shots. He was also named the Big East Scholar Athlete of the Year, on Wednesday, for his strong academic performance this year. He was one of two 4.0 student athletes on the Wildcat roster for the fall semester, along with fellow graduate student Jermaine Samuels.
The awards are the latest of a long list of accolades for Gillespie. Earlier this week, Gillespie was the only unanimous choice for the All-Big East First Team, and nationally he was named as a Third Team All-American by the USBWA and the NABC in 2021.
Gillespie is one of 15 finalists for the Wooden Award, given to the Most Outstanding Player in College Basketball. If chosen, Gillespie would be the first Wooden Award winner from Villanova since Jalen Brunson in 2017-2018.