It’s not common for a player to have his jersey retired by a university while he’s still playing college basketball. But you know what else isn’t common? A player winning the Wooden Award in consecutive years. And Zach Edey is on the verge of doing that. So if anybody ever deserved to be honored in the way Purdue’s star was honored Sunday afternoon, with his No. 15 being hung in the rafters inside Mackey Arena following a 78-70 victory over Wisconsin, Edey is probably that guy.
“It’s real cool,” he said following the ceremony. “I had all my friends here from Toronto for like the first time. It’s my last game in Mackey.”
Indeed, it was.
Next up: The Big Ten Tournament.
Purdue remains No. 1 in Monday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings for the 20th straight day based on a body of work featuring a national-best 19-3 record inside the first two quadrants that’s highlighted by a national-best nine wins over schools ranked in the top 25 of the NET. No matter what happens between now and Selection Sunday, the Boilermakers will be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. The only question is whether they’ll also be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. Ultimately, it’ll either be Purdue, UConn or Houston. Nobody else has a shot.
Similarly, nobody else besides Edey has a shot to win the National Player of the Year race following his latest overwhelming performance. The 7-foot-4 center got 25 points, 14 rebounds, three assists and three blocks in the regular-season finale and is now averaging a career-high 24.2 points, 11.7 rebounds and a career-high 2.2 blocks per game while shooting 61.9% from the field. Simply put, Edey was the unanimous NPOY last season, and he’s having a better year for a better team this season. That’s why there’s no sensible case for starting a NPOY ballot with any other name, and why Edey will soon be the fist back-to-back Wooden Award winner since Virginia’s Ralph Sampson did it in 1982 and 1983.
Top 25 And 1 rankings
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