MADISON, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin’s undermanned and undersized frontcourt has battled some of the best forwards in the conference – with mixed results – through 18 games in the past three months.
Those lessons will need to serve them well as they prepare for their biggest challenge yet – literally – in Purdue junior Zach Edey on Thursday night.
The 7-4 Edey is a near-lock for Big Ten Player of the Year and a potential national player of the year candidate. His 22.3 points per game rank fifth nationally, while his 12.9 rebounds per game are tops in the country. Having a distinct size advantage against whomever he faces, Edey has scored in double figures in all 28 games on a 61.4 percent field goal percentage to go along with 22 double-doubles.
Edey wasn’t the dominant player he is now at this time last year, but he still found ways to fluster Wisconsin. In 20 minutes off the bench and 23 minutes as a starter, Edey was a combined 16-for-28 shooting for 41 points while adding 19 rebounds.
“The one thing that has jumped out about Zach is how he has improved,” UW coach Greg Gard said. “A year ago, he wasn’t even starting. They were platooning him with Trevion Williams and now he is playing 33 minutes a game at 7-4 and 310 pounds.”
“He is much better than he was a year ago, and he was a handful last year.”
A lot has changed for Wisconsin since it beat Purdue to clinch a share of the regular season Big Ten title at the Boilers’ expense. The Badgers (16-12, 8-10) are 5-10 since the beginning of January and sit in a tie for 10th place, fighting to avoid playing in the opening round of the conference tournament since the field was expanded in 2015.
Purdue (24-5, 13-5) has rebounded from last year’s disappointment to win its third conference title in the last seven seasons and can win the outright title with a victory over Wisconsin or Illinois Sunday. The Boilermakers are also playing for seeding, owning one of the best resumes with a 9-4 quad-1 record and 14 quad-1 and quad-2 wins combined – the third-highest total in the country.
The Badgers are simply fighting to get a bid, projected by many notable Bracketologists to be one of the last teams in the field with little margin for error, so finally seeing the Boilermakers and Edey on the schedule could be both a blessing and a curse.
“He’s about the greatest, biggest matchup problem in the history of Big Ten basketball,” assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft. “That’s a stretch because some of the best players who have played the game have played in this league, but gosh, he’s 7-4, making left and right jump hooks, shoot 75 percent from the line, can’t really prevent him from hitting the open guy because he’s 7-4. He’s easily one of the toughest guys to prepare for that I’ve ever done.”
UW ran a ton of bodies at the Purdue frontcourt last season, including a road win that saw the Badgers commit 22 fouls and had five forwards foul out.
The transfer portal decimated Wisconsin’s frontcourt depth in the offseason, as junior Ben Carlson left for Utah, Matthew Mors returned home to South Dakota State, and the Badgers were unable to lure a tall presence into their program to replace them.
Using starters Steven Crowl and Tyler Wahl, reserve Carter Gilmore, and rotating guards to help with double teams, Wisconsin has been able to neutralize forwards like Iowa’s Kris Murray, Minnesota’s Dawson Garcia, and Rutgers’ Clifford Omoruyi. But the bigger, more experienced, and more talented they are, the greater of an upper hand they’ve had against the Badgers’ defense.
UW was unable to contain 6-9 forwards like Michigan State’s Joey Hauser, Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis, or Nebraska’s Derrick Walker – a trio that averaged 18.7 points and shot a combined 54 percent (23-for-34) in three victories.
Likely to join Edey on the first team, Michigan 7-1 junior Hunter Dickinson was shut down in the second half of UW’s 64-59 win on February 14, as double teams held him to three points and 0-for-3 from the field. He had the last laugh on Sunday, hitting a three-pointer to force overtime off a Wisconsin defensive breakdown and scoring 10 points on a 19-4 run in the first half.
And now the Badgers face Edey, who has seemingly faced every kind of defense and found ways to beat most of them. Strangely, the only team that has flustered Edey him been Nebraska, which held him to 11.5 points on seven shot attempts in two games.
But Purdue won those games because of its depth, including a pair of freshman guards in Fletcher Loyer (11.8 ppg, 72 assists) and Braden Smith (9.8 points, 125 assists) that are second and third on the team in scoring, respectively, and are the top two in assists.
Their ability to pass has allowed Edey to flourish, making him a challenge for any team to neutralize.
“It is the other components of your defense that can help, whether it’s ball pressure, ways you can load the floor, and squeeze areas around him a little bit,” Gard said. “Every team they played has tried something. Some teams have doubled, some teams have come off the other big, some teams have come off the entry passer, some teams have designated a specific defender to go get him regardless, some have played him head up and just dug
“You always try to attack some of the condensing of the floor with where you enter the ball from. They do a lot of things of spacing of the floor … that makes it hard for you to load and they enter a lot from the top, which your defense is spread when the ball is in the middle of the floor.”
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