DETROIT — There are ways to beat Purdue. This just isn’t one of them.
It was midway through the second half of Friday’s Sweet 16 matchup between the top-seeded Boilermakers and fifth-seeded Gonzaga. A fine game. Back and forth. High-level coaching. Push and pull. Gonzaga was, as have so many other teams, trying to find a way to fit a tablecloth over a refrigerator. Covering Zach Edey is borderline impossible. He has a room full of national player of the year award trophies to prove it.
The Zags were doing all they could. Preventing entry passes. Putting bodies in front of him, behind him. Both coaches, Purdue’s Matt Painter and Gonzaga’s Mark Few, writhed on their respective sidelines. Depending on which you asked, Edey was either being fouled on every touch or being allowed to get away with a variety of wrestling moves. Fans of each likely felt the same.
No Gonzaga player was more dedicated to the task than Graham Ike. A nimble, athletic, 6-foot-9, 240-pound center, Ike shadowed Edey and, while surrendering seven inches and 60 pounds, did all he could to match Edey’s physicality. A certain tension built over the course of the game. Nudging evolved into shoving. The two slammed shoulders and hips and elbows into one another. Good, tough basketball.
But then came some stares. Ike glaring at Edey, letting college basketball’s best player know he wasn’t going anywhere. There was some head nodding, Ike alerting Edey that, yeah, I’m here. And there was an occasional smile. The ol’, I can do this all night, Big Boy.
Around the 15-minute mark, Edey and Ike tangled in a wrangle for a rebound. Edey demanded the official review the play for a possible hook-and-hold, an elevated foul for intentionally interlocking ones arm to gain leverage. Ike laughed and smiled. The officials (correctly) didn’t call anything based on the review, but the laws of nature were already in motion.
Zach Edey was getting angry.
Three minutes later, with the second half approaching the midway point, and Gonzaga trying to cut into a deficit, and both teams gasping for energy, and the crowd noise building with both energy and anxiety, Edey and Ike clashed again. A one-on-one post-up. Edey pressed his back into Ike, who pushed back. Edey made a move, forcing up a shot with Ike hanging all over him. A whistle blew, a foul called. That’s when Edey and Ike exchanged scowls.
Ike nodded hard, loving every second of it.
Edey loved it more.
“I definitely play better when I’m p— off,” he said afterward.
There are no analytics for this. No points per possession for when Edey’s belly fills with lava or when his brow furrows a little deeper or when his jaw clenches a little tighter. We can only go by what we see. And what we see is a very large man who does not take kindly to anyone wanting to make things a little personal, wanting to get under his skin, wanting to throw him off his game.
This of course must often feel impossible for opponents who likely feel their only defense for Edey is with some kind of bulldozer. As it goes, some players occasionally take Ike’s approach.
Now 135 games into Edey’s career, we’re confident in saying this is officially unwise.
“If you want to poke the bear, go ahead,” Braden Smith said late Friday night outside Purdue’s locker room. “And good luck with that.”
Smith was the star in the Boilers’ 80-68 win over Gonzaga in the Sweet 16, putting up 14 points, 15 assists and eight rebounds, coming up only two boards shy of joining program legend Joe Barry Carroll as the only players in school history to post a triple-double. The sophomore point guard got the live interview on CBS after the win. He’ll be remembered as the one to power the Boilers to the sixth Elite Eight in program history.
But Edey? Edey was, like always, the only sight seen upon the horizon line. This was another day that he could both block out the sun or step aside and let it shine. A dominant, ho-hum 27 points on 10 made field goals — none from beyond much more of an arm’s length from the basket (his arm, not yours) — 14 rebounds, nine fouls drawn, and all degrees of defensive chaos caused. Everything revolved around his mere presence.
Zach Edey and-one 😤#MarchMadness @BoilerBall pic.twitter.com/lBmP9MQu0o
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 30, 2024
Midway through the first half, Painter thought he might have a window to give Edey a breather. A 28-24 lead was built on six made 3s on nine attempts, sprayed from across the perimeter. So Purdue came out of a timeout with Edey on the bench. Over the next 89 seconds, the Boilers surrendered a rebound dunk to Ike, an open 3 to Anton Watson, and committed a turnover. Painter turned toward Edey and gave a head nod, sent him back to the scorer’s table.
One of the biggest shots of the night came on an action that might as well be Purdue’s alternate logo at this point. Smith, off an Edey ball screen at the top of the key, dribbled to his right as Edey rolled, replaced atop the key by a wide-open Fletcher Loyer, who flipped up a 3-pointer. The sequence capped an 11-6 six spurt to start the second half, stretching the Purdue lead to nine, a deficit the Zags would never ultimately recover from.
This is how Purdue lives, how Purdue wins.
Gonzaga, already an underdog, made the mistake of exacerbating the inevitable. Edey does not need any extra motivation to make any team’s life more difficult. If anything, he’s the opposite. He needs to psyche himself up to get to a boil. “I try to get myself going in the locker room, with my music,” he said. That’s why Edey pulls on headphones each pregame to listen to “Superstar” by Lupe Fiasco, the walkout song for UFC fighter Sugar Sean O’Malley.
So, yes, he was plenty happy to answer the bell when Ike wanted to ring it.
Others have also tried and failed, too, so much so that Painter has had conversations with his star about tempering his emotions to avoid taking the bait. That’s how a third or fourth personal foul gets called when you need it the least.
“Just keep your mouth shut and carry a big stick,” Painter said of his typical advice to Edey. “That’s what I always tell him. I don’t know why you have to say anything. In society, when you run your mouth, your percentage of getting your a– kicked goes up. So we’ve all seen that. The guy that keeps quiet is normally the victor.”
Perhaps Tennessee, Purdue’s upcoming Elite Eight opponent, should take note.
Zach Edey can already beat any team damn near by himself.
He doesn’t need anyone to give him a reason.
(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
