The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Purdue’s Edey wins 2nd AP Player of the Year award
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The child who wanted Zach Edey’s autograph during his Purdue recruiting trip apparently saw something others missed.
Big Maple was destined to be a basketball star.
While many college coaches passed on the unpolished Canadian prospect as the basketball world became enamored with perimeter play and 3-point shooting, Purdue coach Matt Painter took a swing on his third center in the recruiting class and found a gem who led the Boilermakers to their first Final Four since 1980.
On Friday, Edey collected his second Associated Press Player of the Year award, becoming the first back-to-back winner since Ralph Sampson won three in a row at Virginia from 1981-83. Edey received 57 of 62 votes from journalists who vote in the weekly AP Top 25. Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht received three votes and Houston’s Jamal Shead got two.
Edey is the fifth player to win the award in consecutive seasons though Lew Alcindor also won the award twice in nonconsecutive
seasons.
“I get to pay him (coach Matt Painter) back. There were so many coaches that looked over me, like you could name a program — I could name a coach that looked over me,” Edey said. “Tennessee, Rick Barnes is a great coach, but he was at our practice, looked over me. It’s kind of been the story of my life. People have doubted me. People looked past me. Can’t do that anymore.”
A dedicated work ethic and a fiery, steely-eyed determination has turned he 7-foot-4, 300-pound Edey from intriguing project into college basketball’s biggest star.
The truth is Painter, who routinely builds his
team around big men, almost missed, too. His first two choices in that recruiting class were Hunter Dickinson, who chose Michigan, and Ryan Kalkbrenner, who wound up at Creighton. Dickinson became an All-American with the Wolverines and again at Kansas while Kalkbrenner was a twotime all-Big East selection.
Edey outplayed them all, becoming the first national scoring leader to take his team to the Final Four since Oscar Robertson in 1960.
He heads into Saturday’s matchup against North Carolina State averaging 25.0 points and 12.2 rebounds for a second straight double-double.