Purdue’s Zach Edey Could Become First Repeat AP National Player Of The Year Since 1983

Zach Edey entered Purdue in the fall of 2020 as an unheralded prospect. Yes, he was 7-foot-4, but he had only started playing basketball as a sophomore in high school in Toronto, following stints as a hockey and baseball player. He was ranked 436th among high school recruits in the Class of 2020, according to the 247Sports Composite.

Now, just three years later as Purdue opens its season on Monday night against Samford University, Edey is no longer an afterthought. He is a star. He could become the first player since 1983 to repeat as the Associated Press’s National Player of the Year.

Edey was the only unanimous selection to the AP’s preseason All-American team that was released late last month. The choice was not surprising.

After all, Edey was the nation’s best player in the 2022-23 season, averaging 22.3 points, (sixth in the nation) 12.9 rebounds (second in the nation), 2.1 blocks and 1.5 assists per game. He had the highest rating (2.106) according to analyst Ken Pomeroy’s national player of the year metric since Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky in 2015.

Still, Edey is entering the season with added motivation after last season ended in shocking fashion.

Purdue was the 2023 Big Ten Conference regular season and tournament champion and entered the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 seed in the East Regional. But the Boilermakers lost, 63-58, to Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round, becoming just the second No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed.

The previous (and first) time that occurred was in March 2018 when Virginia lost its opening NCAA tournament game to University of Maryland-Baltimore County by 20 points. A year later, the Cavaliers won their first national title.

Will Purdue follow the same script? It’s certainly possible.

Despite coming off a major NCAA tournament upset, Purdue enters this season ranked No. 3 in the AP poll, its highest preseason ranking since the 1988 team was No. 2. Analytics gurus Pomeroy and Bart Torvik are even higher than that. Each has Purdue No. 1 in their rankings.

Besides Edey, the Boilermakers return guards Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith, Indiana natives who started last year as freshmen and were second and third on the team in scoring at 11 and 9.7 points per game, respectively. They also have their next four highest scorers from a year ago back: Mason Gillis, Brandon Newman, Caleb Furst and Trey Kaufman-Ross. And they add guard Lance Jones, a fifth-year senior transfer who averaged 13.8 points per game last season for Southern Illinois.

Although those players are all complementary pieces, Purdue is ranked this high because of the dominance of Edey, who has shown marked improvement each season. He averaged 8.7 points and 4.4 rebounds as a reserve freshman and 14.4 points and 7.7 rebounds as a sophomore starter before emerging as the nation’s best player last season.

In April, Edey entered the NBA draft, but he changed his mind the next month and decided to play another year in college. This past summer, he played for Team Canada in the FIBA World Cup. He averaged fewer than five minutes per game, but he gained experience competing in practice against several teammates who are in the NBA, including Oklahoma City Thunder teammates Luguentz Dort and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and New York Knicks forward R.J. Barrett.

The last player to repeat as the AP national player of the year was Virginia’s Ralph Sampson, a 7-foot-4 center who won three in a row from 1981 to 1983. North Carolina State’s David Thompson (1974 and 1975), UCLA’s Bill Walton (1972 and 1973) and Ohio State’s Jerry Lucas (1961 and 1962) are the only other players to win back-to-back AP national player of the awards since it was introduced in 1961.

So far, the only thing missing from Edey’s resume is NCAA tournament success. Purdue lost to No. 13 seed North Texas in 2021, No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s in 2022 and No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson last year.

That recent history has led many to be skeptical of Purdue come March. Still, with Edey and an experienced supporting cast, the Boilermakers have a good shot at making the Final Four for the first time since 1980.