Villanova will return to Mohegan Sun, the place where it started its 2020-21 season, early in the 2021-22 campaign. The Cats will take part in the Hall of Fame Tip Off, an event with a loaded field that includes North Carolina, Tennessee, and Purdue. Jon Rothstein has reported that Villanova will open the event with Tennessee.

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The matchups will reportedly take place on November 20, with the winners and losers playing each other the following day. An official announcement on matchups and dates is expected soon.

It's a great early-season opportunity for Nova as there is a strong chance that all four teams will be in the top 25 when the event kicks off.

An incredible, and well-deserved, honor for coach Wright. He spoke with reporters Sunday evening.

With the return of Gillespie and Samuels, Nova will have up to 12 guys vying for playing time in 2021-22. Wright shared some of his thoughts on the crowded roster situation.

The rules committee made several recommendations on changes today, and there is some good stuff in there in my opinion. I hope to see most, if not all, of these approved.

In an effort to expand our reach and grow our following we've created a Nova Illustrated facebook page. The page will mostly be used for sharing links to the content here and trying to generate discussion that we can hopefully move here to the site. If any of you are on facebook and could give the page a like or follow or whatever to help us gain some traffic over there, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for everyone's support here, as always we're always looking for ways to make the site the best it possibly can be and we hope this can be another tool to that end. Thanks again everyone, looking forward to what will hopefully be an exciting summer on the recruiting trail followed by another incredible season of Nova hoops that will once again bring high hopes. Here's a link to the facebook page...

Things have been relatively quiet so far. Here's a look at where we're at and where we could potentially see some movement.

As expected, we got a list cut from elite five-star prospect Jalen Duren. And, as expected, Villanova was included in the list. However, instead of cutting the list to five options as some reports indicated, Duren actually kept 11 options in the mix.

Joining Nova as collegiate options are Michigan, Miami, Auburn, Alabama, Kentucky, UCLA, Penn State, and Memphis. In addition, Duren is considering both the NBA G League and the NBL in Australia as professional options.

As stated earlier this week, I believe one of the professional options will be the choice here but it's definitely a positive to be included and under consideration.

Some scheduling news on Thursday.

Word is that Jalen Duren, the No. 2 ranked prospect in the class of 2022, will cut his list to five sometime this week. Duren was the first offer for Nova in the 2022 class. Duren is from Delaware and started his high school career at Roman Catholic in Philadelphia before heading to Montverde Academy in Florida. It is highly likely that Nova will be included in the cut.

However, it is my opinion that Duren will skip college and pursue professional opportunities, be that through the G League route or overseas until he is eligible for the NBA draft. If he does elect to do a year of college, there is significant rumblings that Michigan would be the choice. Kentucky and Villanova are seemingly the other contenders, but again I think it's moot because I don't think he'll go the college route. That said, we'll continue to keep an eye on it as we always note that crazy things happen on the recruiting trail and so we'll always keep our eye on things when Nova is still involved. When the prospect has the talent that Duren does, our attention becomes even more intense.

Anyway, barring a change of plans, we expect to get a list from Duren sometime this week and we do expect Villanova to be on it.

Some encouraging news Thursday evening as the NCAA has announced that all sports can return to a normal recruiting calendar on June 1. The biggest implications for our interests are that there will likely be live, in-person evaluation of prospects in June and July for the first time in over a year. This also opens the door to the return of official and unofficial visits, although schools will still be required to follow state and local guidelines.

The news comes as a welcome step closer to normal and will allows coaching staffs to have improved options in the evaluation and recruitment of prospects. It allows gives us a chance to see which schools are watching which prospects and taking clues from those observations as to how schools are prioritizing and managing their recruitment plans as well as how some individual recruitments may be going. It's always nice to have more information available, and this type of information has both been useful in the past and also given us some fun things to talk about over the summer months.

The portal has been crazy, and Wright shared his thoughts on the state of things and how he sees it going in the future while also sharing some insight on the challenges it presents.

Just a quick story on how much the pair talked during the decision making process.

Collin Gillespie gave an update on his recovery from knee surgery. He said he's feeling good and expects to be 100% by the end of June. Here's the full quote from Gillespie:

“I’m doing really well," Gillespie said. "I’ve had some time to relax and I’ve been doing a lot of rehab and physical therapy with our trainer here at Villanova. Just tyring to take it one day at a time and continue to get better. I’m really not in a rush to do physical activities or anything like that. I wanna get healthy first and be on the safer side but what the doctors are saying is by the end of June is when I’ll be 100%. Right now just trying to progress every day as best I can.”

It sounds as though everything is going well with Gillespie and his recovery and he should be ready for basketball activities well ahead of fall practices.

On Tuesday, Jay Wright revealed it will be several months before Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree is in a place physically where he can make a decision on his status for next year.

"I think it’s probably gonna take until August 'til Dhamir can see physically where he is and make some type of decision," Wright said. "I am pretty sure that we’ll have him around in some way.”

While the return of Samuels will help, Nova will be a bit inexperienced in the frontcourt with the departures of Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Cole Swider. Cosby-Roundtree would provide some needed depth and experience on the front line. For now, we wish Dhamir the best in his recovery and hope he can get to a point where he can make a decision rather than having his health make the decision for him.

We're sorting through the audio from Tuesday's press availability with Jay Wright, Collin Gillespie, and Jermaine Samuels and looking at the best way to get all the good stuff out to you all, but I wanted to pause and get this bit of info out on its own awhile.

Samuels was asked if there was any injury issues that factored into his decision to return and he emphatically answered "no." When Wright spoke later, he took time to clarify something on that front. Wright noted that Samuels was being honest in that there was no injury that would have prevented him from going through the pre-draft process and so nothing on the injury front impacted Samuels' decision. However, Wright also revealed that Samuels played the whole season with a severely sprained finger and that now that Samuels knows he is returning to Nova and has some time before he'll be called upon for organized basketball activities, they are exploring the possibility of having surgery on the finger.

“Jermaine actually played the entire season with a severely sprained finger which he’s having evaluated," Wright said. "If he would have went through the pre-draft process he probably would not have gotten anything done to his finger, now he’s got the opportunity to have surgery on his finger. Now that he’s got the time he might get it done. We’re looking at that right now.”

There doesn't appear to be any reason to be alarmed by this revelation. First, Samuels was able to play through it all season and managed to be productive. Second, as Wright indicated, Samuels could have gone through the draft evaluation process without having anything done to his finger. And finally, even though he now has time, they haven't immediately settled on the idea of surgery. If they do elect to have a procedure done, there will be plenty of time for Samuels to heal.

The news makes Samuels' contributions this season (12 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 48.1% FG and 37.1% 3PTFG) all the more impressive. At this point, just be aware that surgery is a possibility, so don't be surprised or particularly alarmed if news of surgery for Samuels emerges.

Huge news Monday night as the school announced both Collin Gillespie and Jermaine Samuels will return to Villanova for the 2021-22 season.


Gillespie, Samuels, and coach Wright are scheduled to meet with the media tomorrow afternoon, so we'll have more on these developments then.

JRE and Wright met with reporters Friday morning after Robinson-Earl declared for the NBA Draft.

The Cats have their first commitment in the class of 2022.

JRE will forego his remaining college eligibility.

2022 G Mark Armstrong, one of the first 2022 recruits Villanova reached out to, will announce his college decision Thursday night at 7 p.m. he announced on Twitter.

Armstrong is currently rated a 3-star recruit by Rivals, but I'd take rankings with a grain of salt for the time being, at least outside of the top 20 or so guys in a class, due to the inability to see the current crop of high school players actually play over the past year. The 6-2 Armstrong plays at St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City, New Jersey.

He is choosing from a final eight that includes Rutgers, Seton Hall, UConn, Louisville, Kansas, Stanford, and Auburn in addition to Villanova. The east coast/Northeast schools have gotten the most buzz with Rutgers and Villanova leading the way followed by UConn and Seton Hall. I wouldn't rule any of the schools out, but there hasn't been as much chatter about the other four. We'll find out tomorrow if Nova has its first 2022 commitment or if it has to shift things around with a target coming off the board.

Disappointing, but not unexpected.

Keels has moved up his decision announcement from Sunday to Friday. See the linked article for details on time and how you can watch.

There has been a lot of chatter about Duke recently after a brief flurry for Nova a few weeks ago, and this announcement has seemed to intensify that noise. After a long wait on Keels, the last week or so has served to dampen some of the excitement, which is unfortunate. But you really never know in recruiting until an announcement has been made, and it feels like that applies especially to Keels, who has kept the details of his recruitment incredibly quiet. Anyway, we'll know one way or another tomorrow.