The world looks different from Zach Edey’s perspective, and no, that is not a gratuitous reference to his height. It’s about the view from the top, really. In his third season with the Purdue Boilermakers, he has established himself as the nation’s best college basketball player, and with that distinction comes a view of the game that is considerably changed from what he knew in the past.
It is not Edey saying he’s the nation’s best: That’s the position of this publication, which is presenting Edey with The Sporting News Player of the Year award for the 2022-23 season. That places him in the company of such legends as George Mikan, Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant.
Edey knows what he means to his team, though. A 7-4, 295-pound junior center from Toronto, he is the first offensive option (also, maybe the second and third) for the reigning Big Ten Conference champion, a team that spent seven weeks as the nation’s No. 1-ranked team and that aspires to become Purdue’s first Final Four team since 1980 and, obviously, the first for head coach Matt Painter.
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“I think my perception of ‘great’ has changed a lot,” Edey told The Sporting News. “Coming out of high school, I had no idea. I never thought I was going to be a great player. I thought I was going to be a pretty good player. I was hoping to come into college and have an impact on my team.
“My version of being great my freshman year was being solid off the bench, someone who comes in and helps with winning. And then last year, my perception of being great – I’ve actually thought about this a little bit this year. Last year if I had like 15 and 10, that was like a great game. I’d be super happy with that performance. Obviously, I played less minutes, so there was a difference. This year, it’s flipped everything on its head. This year, if I walk out of a game and I have 18 and 10, I think I’ve had an off game. I should have done better.”
How good is an 18-point, 10-rebound night in college hoops? Those averages would lead both categories for five of the other nine teams in the Associated Press top 10, and in rebounding for every single one. And still those figures are far below Edey’s averages of 21.9 points (eighth in Division I) and 12.8 rebounds (third).
He has been a force since the season opened Nov. 8, and he grabbed 17 rebounds in just 24 minutes of a blowout victory over Milwaukee. When tested in the season’s first opportunity against a high-major opponent, Marquette, he went 8-of-11 from the field and dominated with 20 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocks. When the Boilermakers traveled to Oregon for the Phil Knight Legacy tournament and faced three NCAA Tournament contenders in one weekend, Edey led the Boilers to victories over West Virginia, Gonzaga and Duke with averages of 22.7 points, 10.3 rebounds and 58.5 percent shooting.
The rest of the season has been a series of similar episodes: 30 points and 13 rebounds against Penn State, 32 and 17 at Michigan State, 38 and 13 when the rematch was held at Mackey Arena, 17 and 19 in a narrow, necessary win at Wisconsin in the regular season’s final week.
It is not easy to be this player. If there is any aspect of basketball that is too often underappreciated by its audience, it’s the responsibility of being a team’s “star”, if we must call it that. The majority of the most successful teams have such players – those who are so reliably productive a coach can build an attack around their talent.
Most who attain this status as collegians have extensive experience as their team’s first option. In fact, many who don’t were high school stars but just not gifted enough to carry the same responsibility at a higher level.
The story has been told frequently of how late he came to basketball while growing up in Toronto – resisting the obvious lure for such a tall teen in favor of baseball and hockey – and did not begin playing seriously until he was 16. When he got serious about hoops, he convinced his family that IMG Academy in Florida would be the best course for his development, but the team there already had future Duke Blue Devil Mark Williams at center. Edey didn’t even start, let alone star. So all of this is new to him.
“I think he’s done a great job in that area. I think it still gets to him a little bit, just because of how he’s wired personally,” Painter told The Sporting News. “Even though he’s a competitive guy, off the court he’s really laid back.
“The one thing I try to talk to all of our guys about, but especially him: You’ve got to make your hard work fun. If everything is going to get to you because of the personal attention, or the attention of our team because of its success – this is what you dreamed of. This is what your goals were. Everybody would love to be in Zach Edey’s position. Don’t lose perspective of that.”
Edey is our tallest Player of the Year winner since Virginia’s Ralph Sampson in 1982. That extraordinary height is both an inextricable element of his basketball success and a considerable burden. There are those who assume the game comes easily to a player who, while participating in the traditional net-cutting ceremony to celebrate Purdue’s Big Ten title, walked past the ladder and reached up with a pair of scissors to slice off a piece of twine. He wasn’t even on his tippy toes.
Zach Edey needs no ladder pic.twitter.com/myxBR33E8f
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) March 5, 2023
And there can be officials who allow overmatched opponents to exercise greater latitude in terms of physicality. In other words, it is not unusual to see defenders hanging on Edey’s arms without consequence while he is trying to turn from low-post position into a layup, hook shot or dunk.
If it were easy to become a great player at this size, there would be more than six 7-footers who’ve previously won this award, which has been presented 72 times.
Being 7-4 meant having to learn different techniques in many basic areas of the game, such as rebounding. Players, especially big men who are regularly involved in rebounding, are instructed to “chin” the ball upon retrieving a missed shot. That means to lift their elbows and firmly grip the ball at the chest, so that is difficult for opponents to approach and attempt to slap it free.
“He had to learn to turn differently; he’s had to tuck his elbows in,” Painter said. “When he chins it, his elbow is right by your head. When two 6-10 guys do it, your elbow is going right by someone’s shoulder blade. You don’t get a foul when you turn and hit somebody in the shoulder. But when you hit somebody in the head, you do. So he had to learn some basic things when people crowd him.”
Purdue has enjoyed almost an assembly line of productive college big men over the past 15 seasons: JaJuan Johnson, A.J Hammons, Caleb Swanigan, Isaac Haas and Trevion Williams. Once Edey became convinced he could play big-time college basketball, he decided he wanted to become a Boilermaker.
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“It really helped sell it,” Painter said. “Us and Gonzaga, we were the schools he wanted to recruit him. He recruited us about as hard as we recruited him.”
Edey was a reserve to Williams in 2020-21, but even though Tre averaged 15.5 points and 9.1 rebounds and was named first-team All-Big Ten, Edey resolved he would attempt to win the starting position the following year. And he did. He started 33 of the team’s 37 games in a 28-7 season that ended in the Sweet 16.
That should have been a hint of what might be possible. So, to be honest, was simple math. Edey and Williams split the center position almost directly in half in 2021-22. Edey averaged 14.4 points and 7.7 rebounds in his 19 minutes per night. With Williams gone, he’s now up to nearly 32 minutes, a 66 percent increase. So if a similar increase in production were anticipated, Edey would be on course to average 23.8 points and 12.8 rebounds – almost exactly the numbers he is delivering.
“I think if he would have played 30 minutes the previous year, he would have averaged 20 and 10,” Painter said. “Some people asked me that question, and I said I feel like this is where he’s at. And then a couple people came back to me, came full circle, and said: You really believe that? And I said, ‘I don’t believe that for this coming year; I believed it for the past year. I think he can do even better than that.
“If you look at how he rebounds, that’s where he made a big jump from his freshman to his sophomore year. And where he’s made the biggest jump from his sophomore to his junior year is his ability to block shots. He moves better. It’s a natural progression for someone in his sixth year of organized basketball.”
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Purdue assistant coach Brandon Brantley, who has worked directly with that long list of elite Purdue big men, told a story to The Sporting News about Edey’s freshman season, when he injured his elbow and couldn’t bend his arm.
“If it was any other kid, that kid wouldn’t have practiced that day, and he’s out there just going with one arm,” Brantley said. “It’s hard enough to compete in a Division I practice with one arm, but he’s going against Trevion Williams. He refused to sit out. He felt like he was in a good place, he was progressing, and he felt like he didn’t want to lose his rhythm. He just kept going.
“He had a burning desire to be great. To look at him today and think back on when he first got here – nobody saw this coming. But give credit to that kid for setting a goal and actually accomplishing that goal, of wanting to be the best player he could absolutely be.”
In all honesty, Zach Edey exceeded that goal. He grew beyond what even he pictured for himself as a basketball player. He redefined his own potential for greatness. It’s not easy being at the top. But the company he’s keeping now – Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, and we could keep this up for a while – is extraordinary.