Although Zach Edey’s season didn’t end the way he wanted, with his Purdue Boilermakers exciting the March Madness NCAA Tournament in the first round, the friendly giant from Toronto’s Leaside neighbourhood was just named the Associated Press men’s college basketball player of the year. And that’s gotta take some of the sting away.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Edey said winning the award does help, to some degree.
“The season ended in disappointment, which really sucks, but it’s always nice to win individual accolades,” Edey told AP. “It kind of validates your work a little bit. The last three years I’ve played here, I’ve seen my game grow every year. AP player of the year is a great feeling, it just kind of stinks the way the season ended.”
Edey, despite his size, resisted basketball at first, instead opting to play hockey and baseball, but eventually he made the move.
“It was something I kind avoided all my life,” Edey told AP. “I didn’t like people telling me what I should be doing with my life and it felt like that’s what people were doing with basketball. When I started playing competitively, that’s when I really fell in love with the sport.”
In Grade 10 at Leaside High School, Edey shifted focus away from baseball and started playing basketball with the Northern Kings basketball program and then onto the vaunted IMG Academy program in Florida and then to Purdue University.
Edey is 7’4″ and weighs in at more than 300 pounds. He is the tallest person to play in the NCAA’s Big Ten conference, and is the most dominant player in college basketball.
In the March Madness tournament, Purdue was a number one seed but lost in a historic upset to the 16th-seeded team from Fairleigh Dickinson, a small private university in New Jersey. It’s only the second time in the history of the tournament that has happened.
Edey just finished his junior year, and it is so far unclear whether or not he will declare himself eligible for the next NBA draft. He still has two years of college eligibility remaining, and could head back to Purdue to try to make a run for a national championship again in 2024.
He has also committed to playing for the Canadian men’s national basketball team for three years leading up to the Olympic Games in Paris, France.