Zach Edey steals the headlines when you talk about Purdue, because people who stand 7-4 have a way of doing that.
Edey is a giant even among the only sport designed specially for giants. Over the weekend, ESPN showed a photo from his former life in Canada playing peewee (a misnomer if ever there was one for him) hockey and towering over everyone. Little was different in Portland except perhaps the big men for West Virginia, Gonzaga and Duke could have used hockey padding when dealing with Edey, who won Phil Knight Legacy MVP honors after averaging 22.7 points, 10.3 boards and 1.3 blocks out west. Edey used his Feast Week showcase to firmly toss his name into the National Player of the Year conversation, playing Drew Timme to a draw and soundly outplaying Dereck Lively II—two of his preseason Wooden Award shortlist contemporaries.
The traditional paint-dwelling big fella was abandoned for the most part at the professional level the minute 6-9 point forwards became the rule rather than exception and 7-footers could routinely hit threes on one end and swat shots on the other. Edey, with precisely zero career three-pointers to his credit at Purdue, needs a lot of polish on his perimeter skills to be taken as a serious threat to steal NBA minutes, even if "Hi, I'm 7-4" is usually more than enough to get you the longest looks possible in The League.
That's a story for another day, and probably another blog. That's not what Matt Painter needs out of Zach Edey, though; he needs a 20-10, a few blocks and perhaps most of all, his presence and so far, he's gotten all three during Purdue's 6-0 start that has sent the Boilermakers rocketing up the rankings and into America's (okay, my) heart. Edey is at just a tick under 30 minutes per game, far and away his career high, and has more blocks (14) than fouls (13) through six games.