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Another year.
Another Big Man.
Coach Painter has surely put Purdue in the top 5 schools in the nation when we talk about recruiting and developing massive human beings at the center position.
JaJuan Johnson - 2007 - 43rd Nationally
A.J. Hammons - 2012 - 75th Nationally
Isaac Haas - 2014 - 82nd Nationally
Caleb Swanigan - 2015 - 19th Nationally
Matt Haarms - 2017 - 352nd Nationally
Trevion William - 2018 - 154th Nationally
Zach Edey - 2020 - 432nd Nationally
That is quite the list.
Coming into 2020, no one expected Zach Edey to make such a massive impact, pun intended.
But, here we are. The Big Man is the most efficient player on the court for our young Boilermakers.
The Big Fella is the first man off the bench and is leading the team in scoring, while only playing 16 minutes per game. Not only that, he is shooting an amazing 76% from the field early on this season.
I think it is time to remind everyone, this is only his 3rd year of playing organized basketball. In Canada, he played Hockey until he was 16 - then he hit that giant growth spurt that forced him off of the skating rink and onto the hardwood.
While only playing a couple of years of basketball, teams took notice rather quick, notching many offers, including Baylor, Purdue and Minnesota.
Again, many thought this would be a redshirt season for Zach, thus far, he has probably been our best player and the best of the bunch of the young freshmen group we have playing.
On Tuesday Evening, Edey fouled out. We have mentally prepped ourselves for this though - while we watched four seasons of officials not knowing how to handle Isaac Haas.
Speaking of Isaac, I think it is fair to go ahead and compare the two thus far during their freshman seasons.
Isaac Haas - 14.5 MPG, 7.6 PPG, 4.1 RPG, .7 BPG
Zach Edey - 16 MPG, 14 PPG, 4.6 RPG, .6 BPG
Early on, it appears that Zach, long term, may be the better scorer of the two.
But, the comparisons are easy, on the block, I do think they have similar moves and similar size, the presence Zach has on the block won’t be matched anywhere in the nation.
I do think he moves better than Isaac and even appears to be more aggressive at times. But still has things to improve on - like not bringing the ball down to be stolen by those pesky guards.
But, it appears that the position is taken care of for another 4 years.
Welcome to West Lafayette, Zach.