NBA Draft: Zach Edey, Purdue Advance to National Championship

Zach Edey, a 2024 NBA Draft prospect, advanced to the title game with a win over NC State on Saturday.

Zach Edey, one of the best and most polarizing collegiate basketball players in the history of college basketball, officially punched his ticket to the national championship game on Saturday.

Edey, alongside his fellow Boilermakers, poured on a definitive 63-50 win over NC State in the Final Four to advance. Purdue will now face the winner of UConn and Alabama.

The big man didn’t have his best game of the tournament — totaling 20 points on 9-for-14 shooting, adding 12 rebounds, four assists and two blocks — but still managed to impact the game in a variety of ways, especially in the paint defensively.

Edey has long been an extremely polarizing player on the NBA Draft front. His pure size at 7-foot-4 has made him a mammoth force collegiately, but there’s questions about his overall impact surrounding his future in the NBA.

Still, the production is undeniable in his final season: 25.0 points, 12.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 2.2 blocks while shooting 62% overall and 71% from the free throw line. So far, he’s played in 38 total games, playing just under 32 minutes per contest.

Edey’s stock has been all over the place. He’s tested the draft waters before and opted to come back to Purdue, likely signaling he was slated to go in the second round. This year, though, various experts have mocked him pretty consistently in the first round, some even as high as the back end of the lottery.

Still, the 7-footer likely doesn’t have his mind set on the draft just yet, as he’ll play his final collegiate game for all the marbles in just a few short days.

While the NCAA Tournament isn’t the end-all, be-all as far as the draft, cutting down those final nets with a great performance certainly wouldn’t hurt his stock.

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