SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Collin Gillespie, Jermaine Samuels and Villanova are back in the city of the Alamo for the first time since winning the national championship there four years ago. Even the opponent is the same, though in a different arena for this somewhat unexpected Sweet 16 matchup against Michigan.
Gillespie and Samuels, true freshmen during that 2018 NCAA Tournament title run, are now graduate students and four-year starters who got an extra season of eligibility because of the pandemic.
“We were just role guys on a team with six guys who had been in big games before. So we learned a lot from those guys and the preparation that it takes to get to that point,” Gillespie said Wednesday. “Now that we’re back in San Antonio, it doesn’t really … like the two don’t really correlate.”
Gillespie, a third-team All-American and the Wildcats’ leading scorer at 16 points per game, has started 121 games since having four points and five rebounds in 16 minutes during…