Four years ago, the Purdue men’s basketball team reached #1 in the AP rankings for the first time in program history. Over the past three seasons, the Boilermakers have spent at least one week each season at the top of the poll, leading all of college basketball with thirteen weeks total. Yesterday, another first was achieved as the team was atop the first preseason poll for the first time in program history. They’ve come close twice before, ranked #3 in 2023-24 heading into Zach Edey’s final season and #2 in 1987-88.
Tag / Zach Edey
2024-2025 Final Standings
After losing in the play-in tournament for the third time in as many years, the 2024-2025 NBA season came to an end for the Bulls last night. I made it to the United Center for the first time in a decade last November to see Zach Edey and the Memphis Grizzlies take on the Bulls. Unfortunately, Edey didn’t play, but the Grizzlies still managed to pull out the victory.
2024-2025 Team Records
| Team | Won | Loss | Winning Pctg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memphis Grizzlies | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Chicago Bulls | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
2024-2025 Final Standings
Purdue’s men’s basketball season came to an end last weekend, falling to Houston in the Sweet Sixteen. It was a strong showing, coming off their appearance in the title game last year and the loss of Zach Edey. Tickets were hard to come by this season, and the only game I was able to attend was in Iowa City, adding Carver-Hawkeye Arena to my collection.
2025 Team Records – Men
| Team | Won | Loss | Winning Pctg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purdue Boilermakers | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Iowa Hawkeyes | 0 | 1 | 0.000 |
Gathering Some Hardware On The Hardwood
For the third consecutive year, the Big Ten’s Men’s Basketball Player of the Year calls Mackey Arena home. Braden Smith took home the honor on Tuesday, thanks to a season averaging 16.3 points, 8.8 assists and 2.3 steals per game. He became just the fourth player in Division I history to have at least 500 points, 270 assists, 140 rebounds and 70 steals in a single season. Along the way, he scored his 1000th career point, his 500th career rebound, and broke the school record for career assists.
After Zach Edey won the award the previous two years, Purdue becomes the first school to have three straight Big Ten Players of the Year. This is the seventh time overall that a Boilermaker has won the award.
FB10: Week 44
Despite the turn in weather, and the first snowfall of the season, I managed to stay above the 30,000-step plateau for the fifth week in a row. Things got off to a decent start on Sunday as we celebrated Danny’s birthday, which left me 34 steps away from 5000. Monday saw a big drop, going down to 3200 steps. A charging session on Tuesday helped push me back up to 5300 steps. Another drop on Wednesday put me 3 steps shy of 4000. Thursday was just a little worse, needing 8 additional steps to get to 3900. A slight increase on Friday left me just 6 steps short of 4200. Saturday was the high point of the week, thanks to a trip to the United Center to see the Bulls battle a Zach Edey-less Grizzlies team and leaving me just 17 steps shy of 6400..
Total steps: 31,986
Daily average: 4569.4
Walking In Memphis
With the ninth pick in the 2024 NBA draft, the Memphis Grizzlies selected Zach Edey, the two-time National Player of the Year from Purdue. While this may have been a stretch according to many so-called draft experts, the Grizzlies were determined to get a center and they saw Edey as the best option on the board. We will have to wait and see how Edey’s game translates to today’s NBA.
Looking For Redemption
By nearly every metric, these last four season of Purdue men’s basketball have been the most successful in program history. They’ve won back-to-back conference championships. They’ve won 59 Big Ten games, setting a school record and tying the conference record.
The one metric where they have fallen short is in the NCAA tournament. Heading into this year’s tournament, they have put together two first round exits, against 13-seed North Texas in 2021 and 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson last year, becoming just the second 1-seed to fall in the opening round. In 2022, they advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, where they were felled by 15-seed St. Peter’s.
Purdue enters the tournament this week as the #1 seed in the Midwest region and look to have an achievable path to the Final Four. But they are coming off of a rough Big Ten tournament, where they scored a season-low 67 points in their victory over Michigan State before losing to Wisconsin in the semi-finals. While Zach Edey was able to get his, scoring 29 and 28 points respectively, Lance Jones was the only other Boilermaker to reach double digits in either game, scoring 10 against Michigan State. The so-called supporting cast answered the bell all year, but if they disappear once again in the tournament, Purdue will once again be on the outside looking in and will have squandered their best chance in decades at making the Final Four, let alone winning a national championship.
Collecting The Hardware
While Purdue begins their defense of the Big Ten Tournament title this afternoon, they’ve already started to collect some post-season hardware. On Wednesday, the Sporting News announced that Zach Edey was their National Player of the Year for the second straight season, making him just the eighth repeat winner since the award began in 1943. Edey swept the six National Player of the Year awards last year and is the favorite to do so again this year, a feat last accomplished by Bill Walton in 1972 and 1973.
Running It Back
Last month, after winning nearly every accolade available this past season, Zach Edey announced that he was entering the NBA draft while maintaining his college eligibility. Tonight, he announced he was returning to Purdue for his senior year. The 7’4″ center has very little left to prove in college basketball, at least in the regular season. I assume avenging March’s loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, not to mention dropping both meetings with IU, will fuel his game for the upcoming campaign.
Off To The Pros?
Earlier this week, Zach Edey announced that he was entering the NBA draft while maintaining his college eligibility. After winning nearly every accolade available this past season, there is little more for him to prove in college basketball (except maybe a decent showing in the Tournament). The big question is going to be how his game translates to the NBA, where the center position has become less and less prominent over the past decade.
If I had to guess, I’d say Edey winds up back in West Lafayette for another go-around. My guess is he would be a second round pick, at best, and that he’d end up spending more time in the development league than on an NBA roster. He can probably make more money through NIL deals back in school. But, only time will tell. The NBA draft is June 22.