City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Where Collin Gillespie goes, Archbishop Wood follows.

And in the Vikings’ biggest Catholic League game in quite some time, Gillespie wasn't going to be stopped.

In a matchup with Kentucky commit Quade Green and Neumann-Goretti, with first place in the Catholic League and some bragging rights on the line, Villanova’s most recent commit stole the show.

Gillespie put together the best game of his stellar senior campaign, dropping a career high 42 points to lead Wood to an 82-73 win over the Saints.

“We did it as a group, I couldn't have done it without my teammates,” he said. “I keep saying we just play, but we really just stay together all the time, we’re a great group of kids who just love to play together, so that's what we did.”

The win lifts Wood (13-3, 7-1 PCL) into a tie for first place in the Catholic League with Neumann-Goretti (11-6, 7-1) with five league games left until the playoffs.

It’s certainly one of the signature wins for head coach John Mosco, the former longtime Saints assistant who’s now in his fourth year running the Vikings program.

“It was great experience for our guys, and as a coach too,” Mosco said. “It’s a great group of kids with great chemistry; they love each other and they play well together, and we enjoy each other as you can see.”

“I think the past three or four years, it’s always been we’re right there, we’re right there,” junior wing Andrew Funk said. “I think this year to get over the hump, that’s one of the best things we’ve done as a program so far.”

Gillespie, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound point guard nearly did do it all on his own, going 13-for-23 from the floor and 12-of-17 from the foul line. He left everything out on the court at Archbishop Ryan, where the game was played due to construction issues with Wood’s gymnasium.

When his 3-point shot (4-for-11) wasn’t falling early, he started attacking the rim, finishing several tough reverse layups in the first half before the jumper started to drop. When he started the fourth quarter with a driving layup and then an open 3-pointer to give himself 31 points with 7:30 to play, it was clear he was playing on a different level.

“Yeah, I got it going in the second half,” he admitted. “In the first half I wasn't making shots so I was trying to attack the rim and draw fouls. But in the second half, there was one stretch where I made three in a row and I was like ‘I’m feeling it right now.’”

While Green, widely recognized as one of the top point guards in the entire country, finished with 30 points and seven assists of his own, there was no denying which floor general had the better game.

In addition to his career high in scoring, Gillespie added eight rebounds and seven assists, giving him a hand in 20 of Wood’s 25 buckets on the evening.

“I didn’t realize he had 42, because I was in awe of the way Quade played,” Wood coach John Mosco said. “He’s great. And Collin just kept coming back at them, getting guys involved.”

“I’ve played against (Quade) a lot over the past four years,” Gillespie said. “I mean, I think we've established a friendship, but once we go on the court, we just play. We’re two great competitors and that’s what’s we did tonight.”

Gillespie also out-played another Villanova commit, Neumann-Goretti center Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree, who had 12 points, six rebounds and four blocks; three of those blocks, however, were on Gillespie shot attempts.

Cosby-Roundtree and junior big man Marcus Littles (12 points) were the only other double-figure scorers for the Saints.

Junior wing Tyree Pickron had 11 points and four rebounds for Wood, which also got 10 each from Funk and senior Matt Cerruti.

Though Neumann-Goretti led 17-15 after one and 40-36 at halftime, the "home" team took a 57-54 lead into the final quarter, which saw the Vikings hold a small advantage almost the whole way through.

After taking the lead for good on a Cerruti bucket with 4:33 to play, the Vikings came up with several clutch 3-pointers to put the game away.

Funk was left wide open in the right corner on an inbounds play, drilling a corner trey to make it 74-67 with 1:48 to go.

“I was a little too wide open,” he joked. ”I had to make that one.”

Of course it was Gillespie who hit the clincher, a left-wing triple that he stepped into and absolutely buried with 1:22 remaining to make it an eight-point advantage, 77-69. To make sure it was over, he sealed it by knocking down five of six foul shots to close things out.

Gillespie scored 16 points in the fourth quarter alone, with 26 of his points coming in the second half.

“Once I get my teammates involved it really open things up for me because they don’t focus all on me,” Gillespie said. “So, once my teammates start knocking shots down, they're not as focused on me, that’s what I look to do early and then towards the end of game I can focus more on scoring.”

If Wood can win its final five league games of the season -- the Vikings also play Emmaus in one final non-league clash on Sunday in Allentown -- it’ll head into the PCL playoffs as the No. 1 seed, with a clear path ahead to play in the league’s semis and finals at the Palestra. Though Wood gets three of the league’s bottom four teams in West Catholic, Bishop McDevitt and Lansdale Catholic, it also has to play St. Joe’s Prep and Roman Catholic, two teams certainly capable of the upset.

Neumann-Goretti also gets McDevitt, West Catholic and Prep, but also has to play a talented Bonner-Prendergast squad as well as another trip to Ryan, to play the same Raiders squad it took down in the league semifinals a year ago.

Don't be surprised if these two programs are meeting not long after that, back in the Cathedral of College Basketball, with the league championship on the line.