GLENDALE, Ariz. – The customary college basketball game stops so often it can feel like a couple hours serving as a driving instructor for a 16-year-old. This was not that. During the course of Purdue’s NCAA Championship semifinal victory Saturday evening over NC State, there was stretch during which the whistle did not blow and the game clock kept rolling for more than seven minutes.
No fouls, no traveling violations, not even any backcourt violations.
Zach Edey insists he did not tire through all of this.
“No, I was good,” he told The Sporting News. “I could play another game. I don’t get tired.”
Of the many astonishing elements of his season as Sporting News Player of the Year, of his run to the Final Four, of his and the Boilers’ advancement to Monday night’s national championship game, there may be nothing more so than this: Coach Matt Painter rarely takes him from the game.
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He played the full 40 minutes in this 63-50 victory over the Wolfpack, scoring 20 points and grabbing 12 rebounds and passing David Robinson for the most consecutive 20-point/10-rebound games in NCAA Tournament history. In the regional final victory against Tennessee last week, he went 39 minutes. In the Sweet 16 against Gonzaga, it was 38. And that was the official count. Break it down into seconds, and he played more.
In Shaquille O’Neal’s five career March Madness games spread across three seasons, he only topped 35 minutes a single time. Edey has done it three times in 10 days.
“That’s just the culture we have here,” Edey told TSN. “Everybody wants to be on the floor. I’m not overlooking the fact we have guys that aren’t getting into the game because Coach is leaving me out there. I’m not going to take that for granted. I’m not going to complain about playing minutes. Everybody on this roster wants to play minutes. No one wants to come off this floor. Everyone wants to play every second.
“So when Paint leaves me out there, I just have that in mind: Keep playing, play for the people that can’t play right now, play for the people you’re playing over right now. Obviously, we need me on that floor. I don’t want to get off that floor.”
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Understand: Shaq is the norm. Being a big guy means experiencing more physicality during a game and thus needing greater rest. Edey, though, went up against NC State’s massive DJ Burns for a lot of Saturday’s game, and at other times against energetic 240-pound sophomore Ben Middlebrooks, and he again did not relent.
“Coach is really managing the practices well, making sure that we’re not doing too much at times,” Purdue director of strength and conditioning Jason Kabo told TSN. “We do track everything in practice to make sure that we’re on the right track with loads. We’ve paid a lot of attention to that this year.
“Obviously, preseason conditioning is important, when we just try to create that base and continue that throughout the year. We incorporate more circuit-based training just to keep their conditioning up through weights and practice.”
It was not a clean game for Edey. He committed five turnovers, mostly by dropping the ball low and into the range of digging double-team defenders. None of those was the product of late fatigue, though. He gave up the ball for the final time with 14:46 left, when State’s Breon Pass swiped it from him. Edey played a clean game the rest of the way, as the Boilers surged toward dominance.
‘When it's freewheeling and you're scoring the basketball, it's more enjoyable to watch, more enjoyable to play, more enjoyable to coach,” Painter told reporters. “To be able to win six games, you're going to have a game in there, a game or two, where you don't play as well offensively. You got to find a way to win that.”
The next time you hear anyone discuss the problems with the shooting backgrounds in an NCAA Final Four, simply roll your eyes and then roll out the clips of this game.
The Purdue team that made just 3-of-15 from long range in an NBA arena for the Midwest Region final – OK, it was the Pistons’ arena, so maybe the bad shooting is something they caught – came into this vast stadium and started shooting daggers.
You can take your pick regarding what shot ended things for the Wolfpack and advanced Purdue to its first NCAA Championship game in 55 years, since Rick Mount shot the Boilers into the final with 36 points in a normal-sized Freedom Hall in Louisville against North Carolina.
Was it the corner 3-pointer from Mason Gillis with 13:38 left off an inside-out pass from Edey that turned a 6-point game into one that never again could be described as close?
Was it a nearly identical circumstance that freed shooting guard Fletcher Loyer for his third 3-pointer of the day to make it 58-43 with 4:36 remaining, doubtless too little time for NC State to reestablish itself?
Or was it a three from point guard Braden Smith at the 3:28 mark from near to the top of the key, which made it an 18-point Purdue lead and gave him a measure of satisfaction on what had been, through much of the afternoon, a challenging experience. Smith committed five turnovers, again none once the game was being decided, including two backcourt violations when State guards played him tight after crossing the midcourt line.
“Yeah, we've just done too much to not shoot it with confidence,” Loyer said. “We've played basketball for so many years, now we're on the stage that we've worked for. This is why we play. There's no reason for us to go out there not confident or not trusting in one another to go make a play.”
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The matchup between Edey and Burns never became compelling, for a couple reasons. Painter chose to keep Edey out of that assignment as often as possible, using 6-9 Trey Kaufman-Renn as frequently as possible to defend Burns. Also, Burns misspent his allotment of personal fouls and wound up playing a lot fewer minutes than, say, Edey.
Burns played 27 and scored 8 points on 4-of-10 shooting. He had fouled first on Smith near midcourt as the ball was being pushed on the break. His second came while defending an Edey hook from 10 feet. And the last was when Burns was challenging a shot by Kaufman-Renn.
Edey always was there. Burns was not.
“At Purdue, I know my role what my role is,” Edey said. “I can’t get tired. I’ve got to be on that floor.”
He’ll be there Monday night when the national championship. Don’t expect him to leave until it’s decided.
