While leading Purdue to the Final Four in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, he isn’t projected to be a first-round draft pick in the NBA.
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Zach Edey is in line to receive the Wooden Award as the best college basketball player in the U.S. for a second consecutive season.
And the 7-foot-4 Toronto native is the principal reason the Purdue Boilermakers have reached this weekend’s Final Four, the semifinals of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. His scoring and rebounding numbers have drawn comparisons to previous tournament stars David Robinson, Elvin Hayes and Lew Alcindor, a.k.a. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
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So why isn’t Edey projected as a lottery pick in this year’s NBA draft? Most pre-draft analysis suggests that Edey might not even be drafted in the first round.
There is a perception that Edey is a tad too slow for today’s fast-paced NBA game, which places an emphasis on quickness and three-point shooting. The poster boy for the new NBA is rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama, who is a centimetre short of 7-foot-4. The Frenchman can do everything Edey does in the paint but also has superb ball-handling skills, can drain the three-pointer and leads the NBA in blocked shots. Wembanyama is in line to be rookie of the year, which is what you would expect from last year’s No. 1 overall draft pick. What’s surprising is that he is also in the conversation for defensive player of the year.
Draymond Green endorsed the San Antonio phenom for that honour after Wembanyama blocked nine shots in a recent game against Golden State. Five of those blocks were against Green.
Edey has been on a mission this season. The Boilermakers have a history of stumbling in the NCAA tournament, but no loss stung more than their first-round defeat at the hands of 16th seed Fairleigh Dickinson last March.
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Edey said that historic defeat — it was only the second time in the tournament’s history that a No. 1 seed lost in the first round — motivated him to return for his senior year. He might also have been influenced by the fact he wasn’t going to be drafted in the first round of the 2023 draft.
A rigorous off-season training program, which included a stint with Team Canada at the FIBA World Cup, left Edey in a better position to showcase his skills. He is able to get up and down the court faster and improved stamina has allowed him to average more than 35 minutes a game. And those are hard minutes as teams double- and triple-team him and try in vain to match the physical presence of a man who weighs 300 pounds.
In Purdue’s Elite Eight win over Tennessee, Edey went to the foul line 22 times and two Tennessee players fouled out trying to stop him. He has taken 434 free throws this season. That’s the most in 54 years and 20 shy of the all-time record set by Frank Selvy in 1954.
Edey will get his best chances to impress NBA scouts this weekend when he faces some players who come close to matching his physical traits.
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Purdue plays 11th seed North Carolina State Saturday (6 p.m., TSN1, TSN4) and the Wolfpack is led by D.J. Burns Jr., who is built like a tank at 6-foot-9 and 285 pounds. And, if Purdue reaches Monday’s final against defending champion Connecticut, he will face 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan, who is projected as a top-five draft pick.
Edey will also be trying to convince Basketball Canada that he deserves a larger role on the national team at this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris.
Edey appeared in only five of Canada’s eight World Cup games and only when the outcome had been decided. He was perfect from the floor, making all eight shots he attempted, but he averaged fewer than five minutes a game. That’s a reflection of coach Jordi Fernandez’s assessment of Edey’s talent because Canada is desperate for a big man. The roster includes 7-footer Kelly Olynyk and 6-foot-10 Dwight Powell, but they are more suited for forward roles.
Don’t forget the women: If you want an idea of how much interest in the NCAA women’s tournament has exploded, consider that the betting industry in the U.S. expects a record handle on Friday’s semifinal game between Iowa and Connecticut after bookmakers were flooded with wagers on last weekend’s LSU-Iowa game.
The women have never received as much attention as this year and the major reason is the dominant performance of Iowa scoring machine Caitlin Clark. She has broken every scoring record for men and women and collected millions of dollars through the NCAA’s NIL (name, image and likeness) program.
The Iowa-Connecticut matchup is interesting because UConn, which has won a record 11 national championships is the underdog as a No. 3 seed. Connecticut has a star of its own in Paige Bueckers and some Canadian content in Kingston’s Aaliyah Edwards. She averages 18 points and 11 rebounds a game and will be playing in the WNBA next season after representing Canada at the Olympics. She’s expected to earn more court time in Paris than Edey.
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