Purdue center Zach Edey wins Naismith Trophy

Purdue center Zach Edey has won the Naismith Trophy as the National Player of the Year in men’s college basketball, the organization announced on Sunday afternoon. Edey was a dominant player from start to finish this year, leading to him landing this award.

Edey has evolved into one of the best, and most recognizable, players in all of college basketball over his three seasons with Purdue. After being used sparingly his freshman season, Edey catapulted himself into a starting role his sophomore season, and became one of the top players in the sport over the 2022-2023 campaign.

His minutes rocketed up to 31.7 per game, and Edey made good use of his time on the floor to say the least, averaging 22.3 points and 12.9 rebounds per game for Purdue this past season. It gained him various honors, including being named the Sporting News Player of the Year, Big Ten Player of the Year, Big Ten Tournament MVP and Consensus First-Team All-American status.

“It’s been everything I could have expected going back to school this year,” Edey told the NCAA’s Andy Katz after winning the award. “Everything I could expected and more, Obviously, the way it ended sucked but our team had a great year, I had a great year. I couldn’t have done it without my teammates. They supported me every step of the way. You know, sometimes even when I didn’t believe myself, they believed in me, and it’s really hard to fail when you have people around you like that.”

With a dominant player like Edey, Purdue won the Big Ten regular season title, the Big Ten Tournament title and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Boilermakers looked like they were on the path to a possible national championship but ended up being the victim of an unlikely upset, falling to 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round of the tournament.

Edey’s future in college basketball is still uncertain. He could return to Purdue for another season at this level, or enter his name into the NBA Draft pool to begin his next chapter. Edey is not tipping his hand as to which way he is leaning with his decision.

“I have no idea,” Edey told Katz when asked if he could follow the path of Kentucky star Oscar Tshiebwe and return to school after winning this award. “I’ll tell you in a few months.”

On3’s Steve Samra contributed to this report