25 years I’ve been a head coach here.

I’ve never dealt with a, a player or an entity.

Uh, like him, we all know the story by now.

Zakie, a 7 fo4 Center, went from ranked number 436 in the country as a recruit to two-time National player of the year.

He experienced one of the worst losses in Nca tournament history, but also Led Purdue to a place it hadn’t been in 44 years but on the court.

How did he really end up here?

Well, we got to start at the beginning of his college career and that game came November 25th, 2020, the Space Coast challenge in Titan Fieldhouse.

That sieged just about 1500 but had none because of the co protocols.

Zack Edi, the 7 foot4 guy that hasn’t played a ton of competitive basketball, what does he do?

He comes out and puts up 19 points, five rebounds and nine of 10 shooting in just 16 minutes of play, winning the Kenpom Mvp along the way.

And we’ll talk about Kenpom Mvps because Zack Ed ended up with a lot of them, but it started into the first one, and so you’re going to see right here.

Right, this is his very first basket of his entire career and you could see right away just some of the signs that, hey, this guy could be really good.

There’s like this play right here where this is just an insane catch.

Like guys like him don’t get these types of catches, but he had it from day one.

And so that does lead us to his freshman year, where he averaged 8.7 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in 14.7 minutes a game.

And, like I said, there were signs right away, starting with the post-ups.

He had 152 post-ups shot, just over 50%, uh, which which puts him in the 72nd percentile.

And we look at where he got them from: 41% were from the left block, 43% from the middle and only 15% from the right block.

Now, on his post-ups, there just wasn’t a ton of dribbles.

It was a lot of seals.

It was a lot of catch.

High, keep High, put it up.

When he got positioning, it was over and he had really good hands and finishing kind of right away, honestly around the rim.

But you could tell that he just wasn’t always comfortable.

He really struggled when being pushed out and at times just really couldn’t dominate his way to the glass.

He also really wasn’t used as a roller, which kind of correlates back to not having a ton of movement yet.

And so let’s look at one example of kind of what his post-ups looked like this season.

And so you’re going to see here right, a lot of kind of ball movement up top or or player movement normal for Purdue.

And as we kind of look right here, you see Ed he’s just kind of going to the weak side block and is going to seal now.

Maybe it wasn’t always this way in terms of going weak side block and throwing this pass over, but it was a lot of this.

You’re going to create that inside leverage.

Get no between him and the rim and just with what Purdue was able to do with their perimeter guys, that leaves that lot pass up over and then also notice, catches High, keeps high and goes up immediately.

And so obviously there is a lot more to his post- UPS from freshman season.

But there are other areas I want to talk about too, and one of them is kind of this: assist to turnover ratio.

So when we look at his freshman season, he had a usage of 28.6, which means that when he was on the floor, about 28.6% of possessions went through Ed, whether it be a shot turnover or some type of assist.

Now his assist percentage was only 5.9%.

Assist percentage is: how many baskets while he was on the floor.

Did he assist on?

Turnover percentage is the other way of how many possessions, when he was on the floor, ended with his turnover.

So almost one in five possessions where he had the ball um, ended in a turnover for him.

Assist percentage very low, and this is the most like the biggest area where you could see him being uncomfortable.

He just did not have a ton of feel with doubles.

He didn’t have a ton of body control-

We got right with his elbows just being that much bigger than everybody.

And he also, I think, had a lot of predetermined reads.

And so we’re going to take a look at one of those kind of predetermined reads right here and so see here.

Ed does a great job: sealing down low, creating space.

Now ball probably should have gotten into him a half second earlier, it doesn’t.

Now it’s going to swing and now he gets his post touch on the left block immediately, this weak side Defender.

He’s going to come over and double, helping off of Ethan morn.

Ed knows the Double’s coming, and so what he does is just he immediately throws, doesn’t really look to see where any of the other Defenders are.

Um, on top of that, it’s not a great pass.

In general, he just kind of has fallen away, throws it up because he knows that’s where the ball probably should go, and now it’s an easy steal going the other way.

Next area is rebounds.

Now on this one, he had an offensive rebound percentage of 13.8, a defensive rebounding percentage of 21.4%.

Now that just means out of possible offensive rebounding opportunities.

How many offensive rebounds did he get?

He got 13.8%, same thing, but for the defensive rebounding side he was a a very good rebounder right away.

This was by far his Worst season.

Maybe some of it was just kind of due to that conditioning and that feel, but we’re going to talk more about this one later.

As with the next area, which is free throws, he went 65 for 91 from the line- 71.4%- and had a free throw rate of 61.1%.

Free throw rate is just free throw attempts divided by field goal attempts.

So how often are you shooting free throws compared to field goals?

The last area that I’m going to talk about for freshman year before we move on, is the defense.

Now again, kind of just with everything.

With Ed, this was just a a year that took time to get used to, so team shot 66.4% at The Rim when he was on, 60.8% when he was off, but teams took far less shots at The Rim when he was on, only 21% of shots were at The Rim, compared to 25 a half% when he was off.

So these aren’t exact things to tell how much Ed was able to impact the game or not, but I think they’re pretty good indicators.

Team shot well, but they didn’t take a ton.

He also had 6.1 files per 40 minutes and were a big thing.

So he.

He filed a ton in this and um, teams were just scared to go at him, but generally, when they did, they had success or he got into foul trouble.

And now we’re going to look at two defensive clips from his freshman season.

This first one’s going to start in a pick and roll, so Ed is just in drop coverage right where he is going to keep both the ball handler and the roller in front of him.

That is his goal, and this is where a guy goes at Ed and they don’t really find success.

Ed had pretty good shot blocking instincts right away.

Um, some of it, though, was he got into foul trouble.

Like I said here, he does a great job blocking and keeping the ball in front.

On the other side, though, this right away, and- and this improves throughout, I think the entire career for him- is he just gets blown by here on the perimeter and now, once he has kind of gives up that leverage, the only option he has is either foul or just kind of give up.

He gives up there, gives up the two, and- and that was an area he made large improvements in- if you are enjoying, please like And subscribe.

As we head to Zack Ed sophomore season, his season high in minutes was 27.

His season high in points was 25 against Msu.

This was the year that he split minutes with Trayon Williams.

Now you started to see him really Blossom, as he had 14.4 points per game, 7.7 rebounds, 1.2 blocks in 19 minutes a game.

And as we head to the post-ups, he got featured a ton more.

He started a lot of games.

He had 284 post-ups shot, 58.2% from the field, which put him in the 89th percentile on post-ups.

And now, seeing where he got him was a little bit different than his freshman season- 44% left block, 35 mid and 20 from the right block- and you could just tell immediately he was so much more comfortable with his body and movements, a common theme throughout all the years he showed the ability to now take a dribble or even two if really needed to get to his spots.

There was obviously still just the dominance of him clearing out all the space he needed, and offensive fouls at times really still were a legit concern.

But he was willing to go over the right shoulder more.

He was willing to put it on the ground a little bit more and it made him have more success.

As we looked at one of his post-ups this season, I think one of the bigger things that Chang is just his ability: ability to one put the ball on the ground but then also handle the physicality.

So as he catches it here on this left block, he sees the defense right.

He takes his moment, understands where the defense is at and then takes a dribble and goes to work.

Now you can see he gets reached in on the from a guard up top.

He also gets.

You know, the defender does a very good job of kind of Walling up and being physical.

But at the end of the day it didn’t matter.

Ed was under control and he was the one that was able to score.

Now, as we head to the assist and turnovers, his usage skyrocketed to number nine, the entire country at 34.4, but his assist percentage went up to 16.2% and his turnover percentage dropped to 15.9%.

The assist percentage took a huge jump, in part because the team shot really well, but he also was just making better decisions, a lot of them.

I think a lot of the turnovers still came when he was putting the ball on the ground, which is what he was doing more of, but there was a lot better decision- making in the passing.

As we head to rebounds, this is probably the biggest jump that he took from year 1 to year two.

Offensive rebound percentage: 21: 1.3%.

So one in every five misses that Purdue had.

Zack Ed was rebounding.

Defensive rebounding percentage: 27%.

That offensive rebounding percentage was number one in the entire country.

There was just times that he really could do whatever he wanted and just get any ball he wanted on the glass, and I think one thing that he did really good of is just creating that position early.

So you can see here: this is a play for Sasha Stefanovich to come off, get a three normal play for Puro Ed’s going to set a pin down right here and then immediately seal his guy looking for a post up.

Now Sasha shoots it Ed.

Now he already has this positioning.

Look at this Gap right here.

He has that area cleared and he continues to kind of push Amore out, and so now, by the time that the Miss actually happens, he’s the one blocking out Amore, and so now he’s able to get the ball and go right back up.

We’ll just throw up the free throws right here: 113 from 174 from the field: 64.9%, with a free throw rate of 53.7.

So the second lowest free throw rate of his career, in the worst free throw percentage by a lot.

Now, moving on to the defense took a huge jump here as well.

Team shot 54.9% at The Rim when he was on, 65% when he was off, and again they just took fewer shots when he was on.

You also see the files drop.

They will drop from 6.1 personal fils per 40 to 4.2 personal fils per 40.

This is where that drop coverage that I showed earlier really starting to improve.

I think there was a bit more Mobility.

There was just a much better job in general protecting the rim.

Still lots of work to be done, but you could see the jumps, and so again here’s going to be another clip.

It’s going to be drop coverage once again, right.

So there’s this screen.

Ed is going to to be back and he just does a good job.

He keeps the ball in front, but he also does not let this roller get behind him, because if the roller Gets behind then it’s a lop, and so that’s just the Improvement in kind of his Mobility, where now he’s allowing his guard to actually get back and be able to contest the shot.

Right.

It isn’t always just Ed blocking shots or protecting the rim.

A lot of what he provided was just the ability for his guards to not have to be able to get back and just force tougher shots.

You know it isn’t him directly, but he does a great job there.

I also want to bring up Kenpom MVPs here.

He had 11 this season.

Kenpom Mvp-

For anybody that doesn’t know- is from the stats website kenpomcom, and it’s just his kind of statistical way of saying who was the most valuable player per game.

Zack E had 11 this season.

He did have three as freshman season, including his very first game of his career.

So now we move on to his Junior season.

The first of his national players of the Year: 22.3 points per game, 12.9 rebounds, 2.1 blocks and 31, 7 minutes.

Obviously the minutes jump is huge and we’ll talk about that.

But starting with the post-ups, 439 shot, 54.6%, which puts him in the 83rd percentile and where he got them changed a lot: 56% from the left block, 26 from the Mid, 17 from the right block.

And this was dominance.

And a lot was really just shown during the Pk 85 tournament.

I think that’s where he kind of put the nation on notice.

He went from a good player to-

Oh he just might be the best player in the country.

During that tournament there was such better awareness through out with his movements, with his agility, Mobility, really just all of that.

And it kind of came together along with strength, better touch, um and and at this point in the season and throughout the entire season it became a lot of just give the ball to Zack Ed on the left block and let him go over his left shoulder.

If teams can stop it, then they’ll have to change.

But spoiler alert, not many teams were able to do that.

It was just most impressive that he could do it for 32 minutes a game while taking a beating a lot games.

So looking at this play right here, we start started to see Ed be used a little bit more in movements to set up his post-ups.

So this one he’s going to set this pin down and all it’s really trying to do is then seal his guy.

So again there’s good spacing and now he has position on his Defender

And he just catches and goes up.

This is part of where he just knew what he wanted to do.

If he could go over the top he was going to, if he was going to go to the left shoulder, he was going to do it, and then there’s this player right here again pin down and then he’s going to seal his guy.

He ball moves, it doesn’t go to him right.

So now it’s going to go.

As he kind of steps out, he has to reposition on the left block and I think the key here is.

So as he catches it he has a smaller guy on him.

He knows that he’s going to draw a lot more defensive attention.

This is later in the season

And I think just the confidence at this point especially was: he knew he was the best player in the country.

He knew that he was the most dominant player, that most teams just couldn’t do a thing about it.

And so as he gets here instead of you you see here, he kind of gets bodied up a little bit.

It’s good defense and instead, of, you know, going up and trying to force a shot, he basically just takes half a second readjusts and then goes up.

And so now, as he’s going, it’s in kind of just fluid movement

And it is just a much better, more confident shot.

Moving to the assist and turnovers, his usage, again top 10 in the country at 32.4 assist percentage went down to 13.4%, but turnovers did as well to 13.8%.

He was just shooting the ball a lot more and because nobody could really stop him consistently, so he was just going to take a lot more shots.

He was much more comfortable passing out a double teams.

His turnover percentage dropped by 7% when doubled, and I think a lot of it came from.

He just had better awareness.

I showed it a little bit on that, the first Postup clip where, or the second postup clip where?

He just takes his time.

You kind of see it in this clip too, right.

So he’s going to catch it.

He’s waiting for gills to clear, which is what Purdue is going to always do.

Pretty much now he, as soon as he recognizes, like he just feels Mahi on his right shoulder, going with the double team.

He knows that look, there is nobody protecting the rim.

So then he’s just going to drop it off.

And I just think the awareness, the reads were so much better for Ed this year.

On the rebounding front, once again dominant number one in the country in offensive rebounding percentage at 21.6%.

Number 15 in the country at 27.2%.

I mean he almost averaged 13 rebounds a game.

He led the country in Second Chance points.

He was a monster on the glass.

Now, reminder, this was his first National Player of the Year award season.

He won 177 for 241 from the line, 73.4% and a 50.4 free throw rate that was the lowest of his career.

He wasn’t even like the top 100 in the country in terms of free throw rate.

He just played through physicality.

He did a great job of avoiding contact on both ends when he needed, and then he also knocked down a lot of free throws still.

Lastly, the defense: 59.6% at The Rim when he was on, 66% when he was off and again consistently, teams took fewer shots when he was on.

The big number to look at here is the fouls went way way down- 4.2 to 2.1, and so the rebounding and defense are probably the two biggest single areas of improvement.

He made the all big 10 defense team.

His his Instinct, I think, in shop blocking went up, but he also just knew when he was beat again.

We’re going to show the drop coverage just because it was so so important for him to be able to improve there.

This is on an empty sided pick and roll that Marquette loves to run, meaning nobody in this corner over here puts a little bit more pressure on Ed as kind of being in this drop.

Now he does a great job again of keeping the roller and the ball handler in front.

Now he’s kind of allowing his guard to get back into it.

Now it’s a dump off.

He’s able to recover, close out on the floater- and that’s all you can really ask for- and kind of going back to almost a freshman year clip here he gets beat on the perimeter and instead of trying to foul or or block a shot or really recover, he gives it up.

He knows that his value is is worth much more than just giving up two points.

Like he is so valuable to this team, he has to stay on the floor and he recognized more like, hey, I probably shouldn’t go for that.

He did end the season with 22 Kenpom Mvps, but we all know how the season ended, with arguably the worst loss in college basketball history to Fdu.

But, Zack, he decided to run it back one more time.

Nai decides to run it back after winning National player of the year.

There’s no way he could improve right.

But he did just that: 32 minutes a game, 25.2 points, 12.2 rebounds, 2.2 blocks.

And as we go to the post-ups again, 534 shot, 54%, which puts him in 85th percentile.

And where he got him from was a bit more bounced: 42% from the left block, 36 mid 21 from the right.

He just physically was so much better than the year before, which is pretty crazy, because that was better than the year before, which was better than the year before.

That, and so on and so forth.

They had to start mixing it up where he got his touches.

It couldn’t just be fully left block, go to work over the left shoulder.

Teams were trying to take that away as much as possible at times.

Obviously he still did that and got to do what he wanted, but a lot of times more was.

There was just kind of this movement added to it to set up his stuff with Rols.

Now this play right here is called horns high, low, and it is probably the play Purdue ran the most out of all their plays.

It felt like throughout the entire season.

If they wanted to get Ed a touch, they were going to go to this.

And so, horns, you have two guys kind of in the slots extended, two guys in the corner and ball at the top.

Ball handler Br Smith would always go off of Ed and then you’d have the other guy pop while Ed rolls.

And so what I’m trying to say by kind of setting up with movement is, as he’s rolling now, Ed is hitting the guy.

Ed is hitting renew right here

And he’s the one that’s going to create the contact and create the space you have.

The two guys from the corners is lift to give Ed as much space as possible.

And so now, as Edy catches it here, he just has so much space room work with.

He has pretty much all of the positioning and leverage.

Renew does a great job here of getting his hands in, but Ed just doesn’t really care and and just shows the level that Edy really got to at finishing around the rim.

Now there was also another element added to his offensive game and it showed up a little bit of junior year, but it really took off this past season, and that’s the Brain Smith.

Zack, Edy, combo.

Edy was used more as a roller than ever.

Now, sometimes, like the clip I just showed, it sets up his post-ups, but other times it was legitimate roll and letting brain Smith do his thing too.

I think the most important thing that it did is it opened up kind of looks for brain Smith against the Hedge.

So here Ed’s going to set the role.

Northwestern is going to kind of be in this hedge with the defender who’s guarding Edie.

He’s going to be up top.

Now.

What this does is it puts a ton of pressure on this weak side Defenders.

Northwestern has to kind of send somebody over, except for this time it is like 6′ three, Ryan Langborg.

Now Ed also is going to show off some of the footwork, and just the again.

He improves so so much back from his freshman year when all he could do his freshman year was pretty much catch and put the ball up.

Now he’s setting a screen, rolling, catching, spinning immediately off the defender and dunking.

He even improved in terms of passing.

His usage was 33.4, assist percentage went up a little bit to 14.6%, turnover percentage down just a touch, smarter decision- making and just less forcing of the ball, more comfortable, also passing out and kind of reposting.

Now, as we look at this play right here, you’re going to see post up right.

He gets the ball and it’s just so much quicker decision- making.

He sees the double, immediately comes down and he trusts his guys.

He’s like all right.

I’m just going to kick it out to Fletch, who’s going to knock down a three, and it’s just the little things like that that just added up over four years and turned Ed into the best player in the country.

Rebounding again:

Elite: 18.1%.

Offensive: 25%.

Defensive number: three in the country.

For offensive, he did his thing.

Now in terms of free throws: 310 for 436 from the field.

71.1%, 80.9 free throw rate, which was the nth highest rate in the country.

Team started throwing two to three bodies at him a ton more, especially after what Fdu was kind of able to do to them in the tournament.

Now, in terms of the whistle right, it was a very, very big talking point.

My take on it it is: yes, Ed got away with stuff, but for every one of those calls that you think Ed should have been called for something, you could probably find at least one, if not more, of where he got filed and it wasn’t called.

When you’re 7, fo4, 290 lb, move well and get the ball.

Most possessions, like it’s just going to be a lot of.

He wore teams down consistently and that was one of his biggest strengths is he could do it for 35- 40 minutes a game.

I mean you look at the Tennesse Elite 8 game.

Like dude sat for barely any time at all and-

And it just doesn’t matter- he could keep going because even at 74, 290 he was better conditioned than you

And it just made it tough for teams to be able to try to guard him for that long.

And lastly, the defense: 63% on him at The Rim, 69% at The Rim when he was off the floor and again teams took shots.

He didn’t follow a lot.

He became truly an elite Defender for one of his roles.

I think he was one of the final 15 finalists for defensive player of the year.

His timing and coverage at The Rim was so much better and it goes back to once again.

His conditioning was Elite.

He played 32 minutes a game, and that’s because there was nine 10 games where he’d only play 20 to 25.

Because Purdue was up 30, like his per game average, is probably a lot higher than that when you filter out kind of these buy games or the games that they blew teams out.

He could do it for 35 minutes and just and so for every play to-play Typee look.

He was able to move better.

He was able to protect the rim better.

He was able to guard on the perimeter a little bit more, and it was just so crazy to see that development.

I bet you can guess it right now.

But we are going to look at a drop coverage.

Uh, clip from Zack Edi here, empty cut sided Corner again and just.

I mean it is just crazy how much better Ed was.

Obviously there were flashes of this his freshman season, of what he’s about to do here, but this was pretty.

Most plays, honestly, and so he’s able to understand like, hey, I need to step just a touch to stay with this ball handler.

I also know if I need to get back to the roller, I can.

So now he’s able to really contest that floater and just make it a tough shot.

Now were there plays where Ed got just absolutely burned on the perimeter 100%, but it was far less common than I think people realize.

You see, here he, he has two PE.

Ed has two people wave off, everybody else saying, hey, just go one-on-one at Ed.

And he did a good job on the perimeter.

He’s just going to stay with him.

And the thing with Ed is is, even if he gives up a half step now he has the mobility and obviously the length at 7′, 4, 7′, 10 wingspan to be able to block the shot.

It doesn’t matter if the guy gets half a step, he’s going to be there.

And honestly, there was more often than not where guys just didn’t even get that step on him.

And so, as we finish this up, 30 Kenpom Mvps out of 39 games played for him, 76.9% of games.

He was a Kenpom Mvp.

In 47.8% of games he led Purdue to the national championship game and the first final four in 44 years on his way to the second National Player of the Year, highlighted obviously by the Tennessee Elite 8 win where he had the iconic Nl connect block right at the end to kind of seal the game.

Now his eyes are set on the Nba, where he projects to be a first round pick in the upcoming draft.

Yes, guys, his size and position aren’t seen as much in the Nba, but also there really just isn’t anybody like Zack Edy.