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Purdue, Zach Edey both heading overseas, just not together

On3 imageby:Brian Neubert•07/18/23•

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Purdue's Zach Edey
Purdue's Zach Edey (Photo: GoldandBlack.com)

Purdue’s twice-postponed exhibition tour of Europe finally arrives at a time when, quite honestly, the Boilermakers probably need it the least, as these opportunities are generally ideal for young or otherwise renovated teams, as opposed to those that return intact and richly experienced.

Thing is, though, Purdue does return an even better roster than the one that earned the program a No. 1 ranking, a No. 1 seed and two more Big Ten titles last season, but it will look very different during the 11-day, four-game trip, spanning four countries.

Reigning Player-of-the-Year Zach Edey will be overseas as well, but with his other team, Team Canada.

Right now, Edey is practicing with Purdue in advance of the European trip, but soon, the two parties will go their separate ways — Edey will be gone deep into September, but back in time for the formal start of fall practice — and the Boilermakers will take on a different look.

“Outside of the schematic part of it — we’ll be different without him on the interior — it just gives other people more of a chance to play,” Coach Matt Painter said. “Some of the guys we have on our front line are really good players, but it’s hard to get a flow in the game if you don’t play a lot of minutes. Zach swallows up a lot of minutes, at least 30 minutes, and rightfully so.”

Edey’s absence does deny Purdue one developmental opportunity: Experience for him and Trey Kaufman-Renn playing side by side more often/at all. That’s the Boilermaker staff’s plan, at least, for Kaufman-Renn to play more forward this season after acting almost exclusively as Purdue’s No. 2 center last season while Mason Gillis and Caleb Furst carried all the forward minutes.

Where and how Kaufman-Renn — enjoying an outstanding summer to this point — plays in Europe remains to be seen, but regardless, Purdue’s front line will be very different, much less post-centric, for one thing.

“They’ll come out (on the perimeter) more than he’d come out,” Painter said.

While Edey is as known a commodity as there is in college basketball and Gillis’ niche pretty well defined at this point after three seasons as a major contributor, Europe could be particularly worthwhile for Kaufman-Renn and Furst, two very promising players whose development must now continue this season ˜in the shadow of the guy who won every player-of-the-year award there is last season.

“More than anything, it’s about growing everyone’s confidence,” Painter said. “I think as the season went on, from a shooting perspective, we just weren’t that confident, and we’ve got to be. We’ve got to be able to co-exist with (Edey) but being without him, it just gives more guys an opportunity to be out there and play and use that experience to help them next year.”

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