Purdue basketball star Zach Edey has been awarded the national player of the year award for the second straight season in a row as they prepare for the Final Four against NC State Saturday. In an interview with Andy Katz, Edey talked about winning the honors, bouncing back from last season, and his quest to win a national championship for the Boilermakers.
While the talk about Edey has been on his ceiling and where he will fall in terms of the NBA and the upcoming draft, the task at hand is winning a national championship, which the program has not done in its history. The Canadian-born basketball player was candid with Katz in saying while he is honored to win the award, the goal was never that as it was to “win a lot of basketball games and make a run in March Madness.”
“It was just kind of trying to do some things that I knew would help not only my NBA game, but my college basketball game,” Edey said. “Like hearing that feedback from last year, I have to work on guarding in space, have to work on like moving my feet regarding the pick and roll. Playing the pick and roll offensively. I try to work on the things that would help me not only long term, but like for this season, the goal was never to win back to back, the goal is to win a lot of basketball games and make a run in March Madness. I think those things would really help.”
Edey talks about himself and Boilermakers having a target on their backs
The senior Purdue basketball star has been dynamite as he is averaging 25 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 2.2 blocks per game while shooting 62.4 percent from the field. With all the hype he brings as well as the Boilermakers program itself, Edey talks about having a target on their backs and why that's not necessarily a bad thing.
“It's tough obviously. You're hunted all year. But I think kind of our team's mentality is like we've always kind of been like that hungry team like we've always played with like this year with a chip on our shoulder,” Edey said. “Like we've never felt like like a team kind of came out and hunted us and we've been the aggressors I felt like.”
“We've had that chip on our shoulder, you play with that edge, that last season kind of brings,” Edey continued. “You say like having a target on your back is like a bad thing, but I think like only like only great teams only great players have targets on their back. So it's something you kind of have taken strides and then you have to accept and appreciate. But it's a privilege to have that target on your back and I think I've tried to take it that way.”
While they can be considered the team to beat in the tournament, they did get eliminated last season prematurely as they were upset by FDU in the round of 64 which was the one of the biggest in recent memory. They look to change the narrative this season under Edey in his last season with the program.
Purdue basketball head coach Matt Painter talks recruiting Edey
Purdue basketball head coach Matt Painter has been with the program for 19 seasons and hit an out of the park home run when obtaining Edey as he played one year for IMG Academy in Florida. He even admitted that while he thought Edey would be good, he didn't predict the 7-foot, 4-inch center to be “a two-time national player of the year” according to ESPN.
“We were fortunate, right? I didn't know he was going to turn into a two-time national player of the year,” Painter said. “I did think he would be good, I just didn't know when he would be good. But he had good hands, he had good feet, he just needed repetition and work so right away, I was like, ‘We're going to throw him the ball when he's open.' He's always open.”
Mason Gillis believes people don't respect Edey
Besides what he can do on the court, he also has the respect of his teammates like fifth-year Boilermaker forward Mason Gillis. He addresses the endless criticism about the big-man and his ceiling at the professional level by saying he doesn't feel people “respect the game” of Edey.
“You can tell he loves the game, you can tell he respects the game, and not every No. 1 person is like that,” Gillis said. “I think a lot of people don't respect the game, don't respect people around him. He does, he looks out for everybody, he's a good guy, he stays in the gym and I don't think we could ask for a better national player of the year. He does it the right way.”
While only a handful of people have won the national player of the year award back-to-back, Edey is more focused on the game ahead which is the Final Four, the first for the Purdue basketball team since 1980. They face NC State and if they win, the Boilermakers either face Alabama or the defending champs in UConn.
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