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Gonzaga vs. Purdue 2024 NCAA Tournament: Get ready for Graham Ike vs. Zach Edey showdown
Battle of talented bigs headlines Sweet 16 matchup between Bulldogs and Boilermakers
Gonzaga Bulldogs' big man Graham Ike has gone toe-to-toe with some of the best centers in college basketball this season.
Three All-Americans as a matter of fact: Purdue’s Zach Edey, Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson and - to a lesser extent - San Diego State’s Jaedon LeDee have matched up with the Bulldogs’ 6-foot-9 post at some point this season.
Ike has even battled with less flashy names like Washington’s Frank Kepnang, an extremely athletic 6-foot-11 center. He's also faced very good West Coast Conference bigs in San Francisco’s Jonathan Mogbo and Mitchell Saxen of Saint Mary’s. Both were all-league caliber players, with the latter earning WCC Defensive Player of the Year and the former averaging a double-double for the entire season.
Ike wouldn’t have it any other way. Battling some of the sport’s biggest and best players was certainly a selling point to come to Spokane from Wyoming last offseason. Even though not all of those matchups have gone his way, Ike has embraced every challenge.
One big from that list stands above the rest though — literally and figuratively — in the Boilermakers’ 7-foot-4 NCAA National Player of the Year frontrunner Edey, whom Ike and the Zags will have another crack at on Friday in their Sweet 16 matchup. Edey has been on a tear in the postseason, averaging 26.5 points, 17.5 rebounds and 3.0 blocks in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
For the third time in 16 months, Mark Few and his coaching staff will look to do what so few across the country have been able to do — neutralize college basketball’s most unstoppable force over the last two seasons. Or at the very least, be more effective against him than the first matchup earlier this season.
Edey went for 25 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks in Purdue’s 73-63 win over Gonzaga at the Maui Invitational in November, a game in which the Bulldogs led by as many as nine points in the first half. Despite missing four of his first six shot attempts, Edey overcame a slow start to impose his will on both ends of the floor. Just his presence in the paint alone was enough to deter the Zags from driving to the rim and instead settle for a lot of perimeter shots.
Going 6-for-32 on 3-point attempts, including 13-straight misses in the second half, is not a recipe for success. But the Zags are a much different team since that matchup in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Ike isn’t the same player he was in his first battle with Edey. A lot of that has to do with the insertion of Ben Gregg into the starting lineup, which has turned Gonzaga into one of the most elite offensive units in the country since mid-January.
Over the last 18 games since Gregg was named a starter, the Bulldogs rank No. 1 in effective field goal percentage, No. 3 in 2-point field goal percentage, No. 4 in offensive efficiency and they’ve posted the third-lowest turnover rate in the country according to Bart Torvik. The biggest improvement though has come from behind the 3-point line — Gonzaga has shot 40.5% from deep over its last 18 games (sixth-best in the country) after shooting 31.7% in its first 16 games (226th in the country according to Torvik).
“I don’t feel like I’m doing a lot on offense,” Gregg said after Gonzaga's second-round NCAA Tournament win over Kansas. “I’m just spacing the floor and letting these guys go to work.”
Indeed Gregg has opened up the middle of the paint for Ike to operate, especially in the pick-and-roll game. While Ryan Nembhard and Ike operate their two-man game, Gregg will often replace Ike at the top of the arc where the ball screen was first set, which can cause confusion for the defense as to who switches onto the roll man and who sprints to close-out on Gregg. Those who paid close attention to the Kentucky and Kansas games frequently noticed this set from Gonzaga, and in both cases the opponent rarely made any adjustments.
The Zags didn’t run much of their roll-and-replace set against Purdue the first time around, and when they did it was Anton Watson as the roller and Ike replaced him at the top of the arc. Ike, a career 29.6% shooter from deep, doesn’t pose the same threat as Gregg or Braden Huff from the perimeter, nor is he as effective as he is when posted up on the low block.
For Ike, Friday can’t be just about beating Edey one-on-one in the post every time to be effective. Beating Edey down the floor in transition and forcing mismatches with smaller guards helped neutralize his effectiveness as a shot-blocker in the first matchup. At 7-foot-4, Edey is surprisingly light on his feet when it comes to defending pick-and-roll actions, but Ike has the advantage in overall speed and quickness down the floor.
In short, the Zags will likely try to put Edey in as many actions as possible on offense, much like they did against Dickinson. Defensively, it’ll be tough to slow down the All-American given the amount of shooters surrounding him (Purdue shot a nation-best 40.9% from behind the arc this season).
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