On Verge of March Madness, Zach Edey Addresses Last Season’s Woes for Purdue

The NCAA regular season is about to end. The Purdue Boilermakers are going strong with a 23-3 tally in the regular season and have only five games left to play. With the March Madness around the corner, their star player Zach Edey was asked about their mentality towards the upcoming contest and that had a lot of Purdue fans going gaga over his statement.

Edey was present at ESPN’s ‘SportsCenter’ when he was asked about their last season’s experience and how Purdue have been performing exceptionally well this season.

What did Edey say?

Scott Van Pelt particularly questioned him on the word in the team while going for their dream of clinching the NCAA title. Edey talked about the difference the team had this year and how they would be undoing their last year’s upset.

“Yeah, for sure. Umm obviously we talked about it, obviously we talked about kind of how last year went. We have the same group of guys back but I feel it’s a completely different team. Um I feel like we have Lance Jones in here now. He kind of gives us kind of a different look and then we also just have guys that got older,” Edey opined.

Taking about the freshmen from his last year Edey stated “They know their game more, they’ve already been through a full season of college basketball.I think even though we have the same roster, it’s a completely different team.” 

Notably the Purdue were the No. 1 seeded team last year when they were upset by the Farleigh Dickinson Knights who were the no. 16 seeded team. The Purdue fought hard but lost to a resilient Knights by a 63-58 stat and that ousted them from the tournament. This marked the first that a No. 16 seeded team from the First Four defeated a No. 1 seeded squad. The Purdue’s heroics therefore came to an end in a humiliating fashion.

Meanwhile, taking cognizance of Edey’s answer, their guard Lance Jones has been in top form. He has the best average for the Purdue only second to Edey with 12.8 points per game. Plus the other players too have more experience on their backs this season.

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Hence, as for now the Purdue looks to be a top team that can clinch the NCAA title especially now that they are placed at the third spot in the AP men’s basketball polls. A major theme for this season has also been grabbing the title since Edey opted out of the NBA 2023 draft.

Homecoming

Edey had withdrawn from the NBA 2023 draft and decided to enter his senior year at the Purdue. When asked about the good part of his decision, the 21-year-old expressed that “this year I’ve really made it a priority myself just to have fun.” And certainly how they’ve gone around things this season, it surely looks that the Boilermakers are having phenomenal time.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if the Purdue can avoid being caught in the wrong end of things this season. Hopefully for the fans, the team would have taken a lesson from last and this year would be keen to give their best.