ROOTING FOR ZACH EDEY IS SIMPLE IN THE FRAMEWORK OF UCONN’S “EASY” PREY
If anyone is tiring of Dan Hurley’s tub-thumping of his defending champions — “It’s disheartening for the other team,” he said — how about finding hope in Edey, who is 7-4 and eyes an all-time moment
My infinite creativity considers Zach Edey against Victor Wembanyama, but only because both are 7 feet 4 and too tall for life and too cosmic for the NBA. Wouldn’t a player voted the best in college basketball, for two consecutive seasons, be next for the descendant of a monster lord who seems taller than the stanchion and whose wingspan ranges wider than the Cotton Candy tosser?
In previous times, Edey might bring justice as a Canadian chasing the Frenchman. But today, because he has tried only two three-pointers at Purdue, he’s viewed as a project amid all the gunning and scoring on a higher level. He’ll make a roster. He will play in a bench rotation. But in June, he won’t be taken before 17th in the first round or perhaps as low as early in the second. Though he’s certainly the best-known player in a national championship setting Monday night, Edey also is the unwitting symbol of why the men’s tournament isn’t as colossal as the women’s event. He has been banished to the cheap seats when Caitlin Clark is the sovereign.
That said, he is worth rooting for, calling himself “a tall Asian guy” from Toronto who didn’t begin playing organized ball until high school. We feel sorry for him as a big man who has no superhuman traits like Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid in an up-tempo sport. Do understand this: He plays “better when I’m pissed off.” On Saturday, in a 63-50 victory over North Carolina State, Ben Middlebrooks attempted to wrestle the ball away and caught a stare from Zachster. When Mohamed Diarra took exception to Edey pulling him off the floor, the reaction was a mean look. And you remember how he responded after beating Tennessee coach Rick Barnes in the Elite Eight. “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, Barnes is a great coach, but he was at our practice, looked over me.”
Only one victory from a title, Edey will be eyeballed by part of a nation that wasn’t overwhelmed by Clark and Dawn Staley. “It's kind of been the story of my life,” he said. “People have doubted me. People looked past me. Can't do that anymore.” At least he kept his cool on TV, at the urging of coach Matt Painter. Last week, Edey said, “They thought they knew us, man. They thought they knew what we had in our hearts. I promise you, they didn’t. We’re f—ing winners. This is what we do.” We heard the full expletive. This time?
“This is what we've been talking about for years,” said Edey, who scored 20 points with 12 rebounds. “The reason I came back is to play in games like this. The reason I'm playing college basketball for four years — to finally get this game, it's big-time. We've obviously got to keep going and keep playing.”
One person who will need elevation and some wisdom is Connecticut coach Dan Hurley, who also is one win from the first back-to-back championships in 17 years. TNT wisecrack Ian Eagle kidded Tracy Wolfson, who is 5-2 and gave Edey more than two feet in a post-game interview, that he “just ordered (her) a ladder.” Hurley also will need an extra stair at 6-2 but he fortunately can summon 7-2 center Donovan Clingan, who will be chosen way before Edey in the draft. This will be your showdown, letting down those expecting an Alcindor-Hayes rematch. But they’ll decide who wins, and if it happens to be Edey, he’ll deserve a much larger party than what Purdue students give him at Harry’s Chocolate Shop in West Lafayette.
By simply reaching the final two in the bracket, Edey and Painter are worthy of praise. They finally dumped the Purdon’t gag in the national semifinal, ridding awful memories of a first-round crash against 16th-seed Fairleigh Dickinson last year, a loss to 15th-seed Saint Peter’s in the 2022 Sweet 16 and a first-round fallout to 13th-seed North Texas in 2021. After falling in 2023, Painter took notes and realized what had to change. How about turning Edey into an offensive threat with a stream of hook shots. You’ve seen him at his best. He holds the ball high and waits for a three-point shooter to get open, such as Lance Jones, Fletcher Loyer or Braden Smith.
Or, he unfurls at 304 pounds. “He's the best player in college basketball, one of the greats,” Loyer said. "He needs more respect because what he has done is unreal. I'm so proud of him and the work he has put in.”
Once a hockey and a baseball player, he took up the game and gradually grew, scoring 40 points with 16 rebounds last weekend. In the semifinal victory, Painter praised him as a team player, saying, “Any time your best player is unselfish, everyone else gets along.” Edey stood beside him, peering at a stat sheet. He might have liked hearing sweet props from Shaquille O’Neal, who watched the game outside Phoenix. “He has a nice touch around the basket," Shaq said. “He uses his body well. He's playing very well and he's staying out of foul trouble.”
That’s enough to keep the Boilermakers as a seven-point underdog against mighty UConn, which has won 51 of its last 56 games and hasn’t lost by double figures in the tournament. “Just getting a win without any of the particulars is worth it, right? To be able to advance,” Painter said. “Everybody wants to talk about winning it. I said, ‘Man, you got to get yourself in position before you can win one.’ You can talk all you want, but if you're not going to play on Monday, you don't have a chance. Obviously, we put ourselves in a position to win one. You've got to give our guys credit. They've been able to battle back. They've also been able to handle a lot of adversity.”
It’s hard to believe Painter will motivate his players in UConn’s manic mode. Not even wicked travel issues, which put his team into Phoenix at 3:15 a.m. Thursday, impacted anything Hurley has said about complete domination. You remember: “We suck at winning close games. So you have to go with the alternative.” And remember: “We have also talked about legacy. These guys right now are leaving a legacy in a place that's hard to leave a legacy. It's been a historical season. They're galvanized by that.” On a delayed flight after mechanical issues, he claimed to have found peace with himself.
“It was nice. A lot of thoughts because I've had a lot of time to think in just a stationary situation,” he said. “I think what goes through your mind once you're done kind of complaining and cursing and muttering, you just start saying to yourself, 'You don't deserve to show such entitlement. Such an honor to get a chance — once-in-a-lifetime experience — to play in a Final Four, coach in a Final Four.' Once that edge wore off, we were lucky to get an opportunity to come play in the Final Four. Who doesn't deal with problems with the airlines? But it sucked.”
After shaking off Alabama with an 86-72 victory, Hurley remained jacked as ever. “I think it's disheartening for the other team because they've seen it. They've seen us do it a lot,” he said. “We make a hard tournament look easy. It’s crazy. Our identity is to be pretty relentless. We might not break you for 18 minutes, 25 minutes, but at some point if what we're doing at both ends and on the backboard is at a high level, it just becomes hard for the other team to sustain it.”
How will UConn deal with Edey? Clingan, only two inches shorter, sounds feisty. “He's been the most dominant player for the last two or three years. I’m excited,” he said. “Playing against one of the best players in college basketball at the biggest stage competing for everything. It crossed my mind last weekend. I will say I’m really good at realizing what’s in front of me.”
My imagination wants to see Zach Edey stab back. As it is, he can’t make typical NIL money because he’s on a student visa as a Canadian. “I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of money,” he said. “It’s not like it’s an NCAA rule. It’s an American law.” But if he wants to make roars for scouts and earn many more millions later, he’ll do so Monday night by quieting Hurley and shutting down UConn.
Want to knock Caitlin off her stage? Try winning a championship.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.