Canadians Abroad Roundup: Purdue's Zach Edey leads Canadian men to watch in NCAA

The Naismith College Player of the Year award is given to the top men's and women's collegiate basketball players each year. Yet despite being named after the Canadian inventor of basketball, Dr. James Naismith, no Canadian player has ever won the award.

Zach Edey is trying to change that.

The Purdue Boilermakers centre out of Toronto is a 7-foot-4, 295-pound bruiser with the size to tower over opposing players in the Big 10, the strength to knock anyone out of his way, and perhaps most importantly, the skill and feel to impose his will on the game through elite post footwork and touch, timely screen setting, and solid defensive positioning. 

At just 20 years old, Edey is already drawing comparisons to legends like Yao Ming and Shaquille O’Neal as he leads the race for the Naismith College Player of the Year award.  

After splitting centre minutes with Trevion Williams for his first two seasons at Purdue, Edey is finally starting for Purdue as a junior, averaging 30.3 minutes per game.

Through nine games as the primary option for the impressive 9-0 Boilermakers this season, Edey is averaging 23.2 points, 13.3 rebounds, 1 assist and 1.8 blocks on 60.8 per cent shooting from the field and 73.9 per cent from the free-throw line.

As Edey’s usage has crept up across three college seasons, his efficiency has held steady. And that is one of the many reasons that Canadian basketball fans might hear Edey’s name called early in the 2023 NBA Draft this upcoming summer. But before that, Edey has plans to bring No. 4 ranked Purdue their first national championship in program history. 

“He is an outlier,” Purdue head coach Matt Painter said about Edey. “There is nobody else out there like him. There might be some people of that size, but they don’t have the skill that he has in terms of his ability to make shots around the rim.”

Edey sometimes looks like a man among boys the way he towers over opponents and moves them out of his way, touching the rim without needing to fully extend his arms. It makes some of what he does look easy, at least to the untrained eye. But the truth is that Edey is as fundamentally sound as they come at age 20: he does his work early, sprinting the floor after a defensive rebound and sealing his man deep under the basket for an easy post-up. His footwork is impeccable, going in either direction and finishing with either hand, leaning on his patented right-hand hook shot as a go-to move. And he does the little things, boxing out opponents for defensive rebounds, crashing the glass from opportune angles for offensive rebounds, and setting strong screens to free up his ball-handlers in the pick-and-roll. 

The one major knock on Edey as an NBA prospect is his defensive mobility, and whether or not he is going to be able to match the rapid pace of the NBA game, especially with centres switching out onto the perimeter more than ever these days. Edey moves well for his size, but there is not a lot of precedent for a broad, 7-foot-4 centre being able to move fast enough to effectively defend in the modern NBA, especially when guys like Steph Curry are targeting you in the pick-and-roll. 

Still, Edey is moving in the right direction in that regard, improving his lateral speed and defensive positioning while seeing his foul rate decrease from 6.2 fouls per 40 minutes in his freshman season to just 2.5 fouls per 40 minutes this season. It’s just more evidence of the work he has put into his craft since coming to basketball late in life — a fact that only makes his long-term ceiling even higher. 

Truth is, Edey didn’t start playing organized basketball until Grade 10. Growing up, he played baseball and hockey like a typical Canadian kid — he credits baseball with improving his touch, specifically on his right hand, whereas he credits hockey for his strength, toughness, and fitness levels. But shortly after starting to play high school ball, he got noticed by the Northern Kings AAU program in Toronto, run by former national team player Vidal Massiah. He then transferred to the IMG Academy in Florida for his last two years of high school before enrolling at Purdue. At the time, he was the No. 483 ranked high school player. 

“I remember learning basic stuff that seemed so complicated, like a hook shot and when you do the right-left into a layup,” Edey said about his early days playing ball. “That was so complicated. I had to do a full practice to figure out how to do right-left, then left-right with different hands. Like, super, super basic concepts that I really had to work on in 10th grade. I hadn’t played it. I was brand new. So I started super behind.”

Now, Edey is not just the primary option for the 9-0 Boilermakers and the frontrunner for the Naismith College Player of the Year — he is also the youngest core member of the Canadian men’s senior national team, who recently qualified for the 2023 FIBA World Cup. As he tries to propel the Boilermakers to glory, Edey will also be focused on putting himself in a good position to be drafted into the NBA while also potentially fighting to make the 12-man roster for the upcoming World Cup team. That’s a lot to put on a 20-year-old’s shoulders, no matter how broad they are. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time Edey has exceeded all reasonable expectations. 

Other Canadians to watch in the NCAA: 

Marcus Carr, Guard — Senior at University of Texas

The fifth-year senior at Texas is a heady point guard who knows how to manage a game and is a tough-as-nails defender. Coming off an impressive GLOBL JAM tournament with the Canadian under-23 team, Carr is back with a Longhorn team that is ranked No. 2 nationally and has big ambitions in the March Madness tournament. Through seven games this season, the 6-foot-2 guard is averaging 14.6 points, 2.7 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2.1 steals on 40/33/70 shooting. It’s his most efficient season from the field and his best assist-to-turnover ratio ever at about 4-to-1. Carr is someone to watch this NCAA season and into the summer as he tries to fight his way into an NBA contract. 

Emmanuel Miller, Wing — Senior at Texas Christian University

Emmanuel’s brother, Leonard, is sure to get most of the attention this season as the 18-year-old raises eyebrows with the G League Ignite program, but Emmanuel is a heck of a player in his own right. The 6-foot-7 wing from Scarborough, Ont., is a special defender who can guard multiple positions and is off to a great start to the season offensively, averaging 12.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2 assists while continuing to be an elite slasher and shooting a career-high 45.5 percent from three, potentially making him a legitimate NBA prospect. 

Ryan Nembhard, Guard — Sophomore at Creighton

Speaking of Canadian ballers whose brothers sometimes overshadow them, Ryan Nembhard is hoping to follow in his older brother Andrew’s footsteps as the Pacers rookie lights up the NBA. Ryan is in his second season at Creighton, where he starts at point guard and averages 12.4 points and 5.6 assists to just 1.4 turnovers this season, managing the games as a pure 5. But as a career 31 per cent three-point shooter, the 6-foot Ryan will need to improve his three-ball if he wants a better chance at an NBA career. 

Olivier Maxence-Prosper, Forward — Junior at Marquette 

Maxence-Prosper is in the midst of a breakout season at Marquette, where the 6-foot-8 forward is averaging 15.2 points and 5.2 rebounds on 58/35/70 shooting in his second season there. With scoring outputs of 24 and 25 points in two of his last three games, Maxence-Prosper is starting to get attention from the NBA community. After all, he has the frame of an NBA player and the versatility to play multiple positions, especially when he is knocking down the three-ball at this rate. But Maxence-Prosper will have to sustain this output over the course of a full season to earn real consideration when the NBA draft rolls around. 

Elijah Fisher - Guard - Freshman at Texas Tech

Fisher is only playing 11.3 minutes per game as an 18-year-old freshman at Texas Tech, but the 6-foot-6 guard is one of Canada’s most intriguing basketball prospects when it comes to his long-term outlook. After all, Fisher has a lethal combination of ball-handling, shooting, and athleticism, capable of heady point guard play and flashy dunks. In high school, he set an OSBA record with 75 points in one game for Crestwood Prep, then went toe-to-toe with an older Leonard Miller at the 2022 BioSteel All-Canadian game. Though it looks like it could be a while before Fisher earns the trust of his coaches and gets on the floor consistently at Texas Tech, it’s only a matter of time before he bursts onto the national stage.