This weekend, Zach Edey will complete the most successful season a Canadian has ever had in U.S. college basketball.

The star centre for the Purdue Boilermakers is the odds-on favourite to be named the Naismith men’s player of the year on as part of the festivities for the Final Four in Houston. Given he has already been recognized as the Associated Press player of the year, has won three other national player-of-the-year awards, was a consensus first-team all-American and conference player of the year in the Big 10, it’s considered a given that he’ll complete the sweep.

By the standards of Canadian basketball, national player-of-the-year recognition is unprecedented. Former Canadian women’s team star Stacey Dales was twice a first-team All-American at the University of Oklahoma in 2001 and 2002, as was Bev Smith at Oregon in 1981 and 1982, but neither earned national player-of-the-year recognition. On the men’s side, only R.J Barrett (2018-19) and Kelly Olynyk (2012-13) earned first-team nods.

But then again, almost everything Edey has done so far in his brief basketball career is some version of ground-breaking. The 7-foot-4, 300-pound not-so-gentle giant from Toronto is still relatively new to the game, having not taken the sport seriously until he was well into high school after first playing hockey and baseball. He was a moderately recruited reserve as a freshman and a role player as a sophomore before turning into the most dominant player in Division 1 as a junior.

“Let’s be real here, I don’t think there’s been another national player of the year that’s spent five years in organized basketball – two of which he barely played – and reached the level he’s reached,” said Vidal Messiah, the former Canadian national team member who helped launch Edey on his path this time of year in 2018.

Messiah noticed Edey – who had just started playing house league basketball at Christmas -- playing at a tournament and encouraged him to join his Northern Kings summer AAU team and connected him with the IMG Academy in Florida for his last two years of high school.

This weekend, Zach Edey will complete the most successful season a Canadian has ever had in U.S. college basketball.

The star centre for the Purdue Boilermakers is the odds-on favourite to be named the Naismith men’s player of the year on as part of the festivities for the Final Four in Houston. Given he has already been recognized as the Associated Press player of the year, has won three other national player-of-the-year awards, was a consensus first-team all-American and conference player of the year in the Big 10, it’s considered a given that he’ll complete the sweep.

By the standards of Canadian basketball, national player-of-the-year recognition is unprecedented. Former Canadian women’s team star Stacey Dales was twice a first-team All-American at the University of Oklahoma in 2001 and 2002, as was Bev Smith at Oregon in 1981 and 1982, but neither earned national player-of-the-year recognition. On the men’s side, only R.J Barrett (2018-19) and Kelly Olynyk (2012-13) earned first-team nods.

But then again, almost everything Edey has done so far in his brief basketball career is some version of ground-breaking. The 7-foot-4, 300-pound not-so-gentle giant from Toronto is still relatively new to the game, having not taken the sport seriously until he was well into high school after first playing hockey and baseball. He was a moderately recruited reserve as a freshman and a role player as a sophomore before turning into the most dominant player in Division 1 as a junior.

“Let’s be real here, I don’t think there’s been another national player of the year that’s spent five years in organized basketball – two of which he barely played – and reached the level he’s reached,” said Vidal Messiah, the former Canadian national team member who helped launch Edey on his path this time of year in 2018.

Messiah noticed Edey – who had just started playing house league basketball at Christmas -- playing at a tournament and encouraged him to join his Northern Kings summer AAU team and connected him with the IMG Academy in Florida for his last two years of high school.

Toronto's Zach Edey has career-high 38 points to lead Purdue to another win

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But perhaps the most amazing thing about Edey is that despite his size and his college resume, where his career takes him from here is unclear.

Not all that long ago, there wouldn’t have been any question: if you played centre and were the best player in college basketball, you were going straight to the top of the NBA draft. His production would seem to warrant it, as Edey averaged 22.3 points, 12.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks while shooting 60.7 per cent from the floor a Purdue team that hovered around the top of the college rankings all season. They were just the second No.1 seed to lose to No. 16 in the first round of the NCAA tournament, but Edey was hardly to blame, as he delivered 21 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks tournament opening loss.