“Zach Edey gets the living crap pounded out of him”
INDIANAPOLIS — John Adams sees it every time he watches a Purdue men’s basketball game, and as he says it so bluntly without hesitation, it’s this: “Zach Edey gets the living crap pounded out of him.”
But the former NCAA men’s basketball national coordinator goes on to say, “At 7-4, over 300 pounds, the guys just bounce off him.”
And therein lies the seemingly unsolvable conundrum for officials whistling for or against the Herculean Edey.
“It’s what we call ‘art versus science,'” said Bo Boroski, who served as a Division I official for two decades before retiring in 2022 after three straight Final Fours. Boroski made many judgments in court when Edey showed up. And as he made those calls, he kept two things in mind.
“The science. It’s the letter of the law. When you do this, you do it without further thought,” Boroski said. “And the art. It’s a sense of the game, understanding what has an impact. I’ve always tried to use both.”
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Like when a 5-11 guy slammed Edey’s forearm as he went up for a monstrous dunk, pounding him through the rim. Was that illegal contact or just coincidental?
There’s a fine line officials have to walk when it comes to true fivers, true post players and true back-to-the-basket centers. Edey is a dying breed in basketball, Adams said, and that’s a liability for him on the court.
“Edey is being punished,” he said, “because he’s one of the last true centers.”
“Edey can’t be blamed for being 7-4”
Purdue coach Matt Painter seems to agree, although he declined to be interviewed by IndyStar for this story. In January, Painter spoke up after a Purdue win over Maryland in which the team “used multiple players to get into the game to hit and pop with the Boilermakers’ 7ft 4 center,” wrote Journal & Courier.
“All the monstrous chucks, grabs, all of these things need to be called out and it needs to be called out every time,” Painter said. “I think officers don’t want to call it every time because people won’t do that in most scenarios, but since[Edeys]is such a tough cover, it keeps happening.”
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The officials are the ones who have the power, who can decide if that elbow or hook of an opponent goes up on Edey for illegal contact, especially when Edey uses his monstrous body to fight his way through and make the basket.
“You can’t blame Zach Edey for being 7-4. If he makes illegal contact, it should be a foul,” Boroski said. “With that in mind, you should also consider all the other variables that go into the decision-making process.”‘
And that’s where art comes in.
“These are massive people,” Boroski said. “There’s a proportional aspect to that, because if I shoved someone at 5-8 with the same force as I would shove someone at 7-4, there might not be any negative impact or impact on the 7-4 person. That’s what we need to differentiate.”
Sometimes science says it was a foul. Sometimes art says it wasn’t. And vice versa, depending on which end of the pitch is being whistled.
“Unfortunately, people the size of Zach reach out a lot more than their teammates,” Boroski said. “Because it takes more contact to make a difference.”
At Edey, says former official JD Collins, “rather than looking at player size, you have to look at ‘do they have an advantage?'”
“We look at the physical action that’s happening on the floor and see if there’s been a shift,” said Collins, who officiated for two decades, including two Final Fours, an Elite Eight and five Sweet Sixteens. “When you have two 300-pound, 6-10 players pushing each other, the art of the game says, ‘Physically, there’s not necessarily a foul.'”
But when one player ousts the other, the call can change.
“Sometimes when you look at a very tall man, they just move around the court because the person guarding them is smaller, they move too,” said Collins, who served as NCAA national coordinator for men’s basketball in 2022 retired. “It doesn’t necessarily require you to physically dislodge them. It’s a very fine line between what displacement versus gaining an advantage is.”
A fine line, especially when it comes to Edey, the world’s most monstrous college basketball star.
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“Zach gets a Shaq treatment”
Edey declined an interview request for this story through a spokesperson who understandably said, “We will politely decline this idea of the story.
The 7-0, 284-pound Greg Oden stepped in to explain how it feels to have Edey on the court.
“When you’re tall, it kind of feels unfair,” said Oden, a former Lawrence North High and Ohio State star and NBA player. “It’s strange to always be so much bigger and more powerful and more imposing. It just feels like they can give you a power, if you give back even a fraction of that power it’s not going to be good.”
Not good, a foul. And then, on the other end of the court, there’s the “everyday spanking,” Oden said.
“Zach is getting treatment from Shaq,” he said. “Everyone’s beating him the whole game and sometimes he probably doesn’t even feel it. But he’s probably in the training room and having his back checked the next day.”
Oden, who is now Butler’s director of basketball operations, said he’s found ways to overcome his height while playing.
“I know NBA guys would just yell or bang their hands,” he said. “My thing was just to try and play it through. There’s no use complaining to the referees. Go through the contact, try to get the basket and if you get a foul, that’s a bonus.”
Boroski said he agrees with Oden on most counts. But sometimes the bonus isn’t foul play.
“If Zach goes to the basket and engages in a little bit of contact that I don’t think is illegal, it’s not entirely illegal and I let him trick him, I did him a favor,” Boroski said. “I could have blown it, waved the bucket off and who did I really punish? I punished Purdue and Zach Edey.”
Whether the whistle blows or not, Edey made it clear in January after the Maryland game what he thinks is happening on the field. “I get fouled on every possession,” he said.
“I think a lot of people know that. They’re going to have two hands on my back. They’re going to have a knee in my butt. Those are just fouls. They’re putting their whole body weight on me. That’s a foul,” Edey said. “I’m strong enough, I can handle it. You can’t call every possession a foul, so I just have to deal with it.”
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“No one knows how to deal with it”
Edey shouldn’t “just have to deal with it,” Adams said. “Responding true postplay is the most inconsistently directed part of the game (NCAA men’s college basketball).”
People ask Adams his opinion on Edey’s position all the time.
“That’s what I tell people. I was going four games a week for seven years, 17 or 18 weeks (as acting coordinator of the NCAA),” he said. “I’ve gone to every game, sat under the basket and I don’t know what’s a foul and what’s not in low block. I think it changes minute by minute, not game by game.”
The real problem is how few college teams have true back-to-the-basket fives. “Almost no teams do that. Purdue does,” Adams said. “Nobody knows how to deal with that.”
As the Big Ten tournament plays out this week — followed by the NCAA tournament — many players, fans and coaches will have complaints about the office, including calls for or against Edey.
But Collins has a statistic these people would like to hear: In 67 games of the 2022 NCAA tournament, officials got the whistle right 96.02% of the time, he said. When adding calls that should have blown a whistle, officers were successful 93% of the time.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’d be happy to be right about everything 93% of the time,” Collins said. “And people yell at us like we’re 50-50.”
Adams says the best ability an official can have when beating big men like Edey is consistency.
“A foul is a foul,” he said. “If you’re going to call that foul in a minute, call it in a minute. Otherwise, every time the official tries to play God, they don’t do very well.”
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @Dana Benbow. Reach them via email: [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue’s Zach Edey: How NCAA Officials Call Fouls (or Not) on Big Men
