Taunting Zach Edey is weird. Especially after he just did *that* to your beloved Hoosiers.
BLOOMINGTON – The guy’s yelling at Zach Edey, and this can’t be happening, but it is. Purdue has just beaten IU 87-66 at Assembly Hall, which is already mostly empty. The building started clearing out with five minutes left, but at the final horn this place was a mausoleum, except for a pocket of five IU fans sitting behind one basket, about 15 rows up.
“Edey, you’re a bum!” the guy’s yelling, and you’ve seen him. He’s everywhere: mid-50s, facial hair, ballcap, smirk.
Edey had 33 points.
“Edey, the NBA doesn’t want you!” the guy’s yelling, and it’s so quiet inside Assembly Hall I can hear him, word for word, from my spot near midcourt.
Edey had 14 rebounds.
“Edey, get a script!” the guy’s yelling, because Edey’s being interviewed by Peacock. “Get a script, you moron!”
Edey can hear the guy. Everybody can hear the guy. Most people are ignoring him, because he’s nobody, but Edey’s looking that way and smiling at him and waving goodbye.
“Yeah, Edey, you’re terrible!” the guy’s yelling.
The guy’s smirking. Clever, this guy. Two women sitting in front of him are giggling. Two men behind this particular IU fan are smiling along as well. They’re together, clearly, and they all seem to be enjoying the show.
This guy is so loud, wanting the attention from Edey, I decide to give him some more. I start walking up the bleachers.
Zach Edey, Purdue are targets
This happens to Purdue, and to Edey. We’ve never seen a Big Ten team with this run of success — being ranked No. 1 in three consecutive seasons — and we’ve never seen a Big Ten team, or any team, asked to be this poised.
Put it like this: In nine of Purdue’s past 10 road losses in league play, which goes back more than two years, opposing fans have stormed the court.
Nine of the Boilers’ past 10 losses.
That includes the last time Purdue was here at Assembly Hall, in 2023, when an IU program with five national titles beat the Boilermakers and then watched as its fans acted like it was a miracle — pouring on the court, the scene dangerous but typical.
As for Edey, he gets it worse than everyone else. His crime? He’s too big, too dominant, too unaffected by the noise around him. During pregame introductions Tuesday night Edey was booed the loudest by far, with dozens of IU fans giving him the “you’re No. 1 sign.” Maybe they were signaling something else.
Edey gets it worse from the other team, too, and I can’t listen to the argument that he gives as good as he gets, because he’s not dirty. He’s not trying to hurt people out there. He’s big, though, bigger than we’ve ever seen in college basketball.
“He’s a load,” IU coach Mike Woodson had said the day before the game. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
He’s a target, too, like the hook-and-hold he received from 6-10, 258-pound Peyton Sparks in the first half. That’s a flagrant foul, because the hook-and-hold — when one player intertwines an arm with another player and pulls — can cause major shoulder damage. Edey goes to the line for two free throws, just him alone, with nearly 18,000 people screaming at him, and makes both. At 7-4. That’s not normal.
Later in the first half, something else happens. In a word: Xavier. In another word: Xavier Johnson. The IU sixth-year senior is having a rough stretch, but there’s no excuse for the low blow he landed two games ago against Rutgers, or for what he did to Edey on Tuesday night: Edey setting a screen on the perimeter, freeing Braden Smith for a 17-footer, and rolling to the rim. Xavier Johnson, defending another Purdue guard on the play, leaves his man to intercept Edey with a forearm shiver to the chest.
Edey laughs.
Another flagrant foul.
Edey goes to the line again, alone against the world, and hits two more free throws.
None of this is normal, especially that idiot behind the basket, still here minutes after the game just to yell insults at Zach Edey.
Let’s go meet him.
Edey, mom show such grace
“Why are you yelling at Edey?”
That’s what I’m asking the IU fan in his white T-shirt, part of the planned whiteout of Assembly Hall.
“Because he’s terrible,” the guy tells me.
Me: “He had 33 and 14.”
Guy: “He sucks.”
Me: “You see the scoreboard?”
Guy: “So what.”
Me: “You drunk?”
Guy: “I haven’t had a drink all night.”
At this point I’m telling him that I’m going to write about this, and he’s smiling, loving it. I’m asking his name, and he gives me one. I ask him to spell it, and he does. I catch the smirk he gives one of the other IU fans in his party. I’m skeptical, but go online to match his face with the name he gave me. Can’t do it. So he’ll go nameless, which crushes me. The guy was tough, but only from the safety of anonymity.
Meanwhile, Purdue’s looking for Zach Edey. The postgame news conference is now, and Edey’s the star of the game, and Purdue’s men’s basketball communications guru Chris Forman is hustling onto the court, where some players are mingling with fans, and looking for Edey.
“How do you misplace a 7-4 guy?” Forman’s saying.
Having an idea where Edey might be, I head out the tunnel where visiting players often meet their families, and sure enough, Edey’s there. He’s posing for pictures with fans — some Purdue, some IU — until Forman shows up and Edey starts walking to the news conference. I walk Edey there and ask him about the idiot on the baseline.
“It’s weird,” Edey says, smiling some more. “A grown man, yelling at me like that.”
Pause.
“I must be doing something right,” he says.
Now he’s disappearing into the news conference room and I’m doubling back to Zach’s mother, Julia Edey, and asking her about what just happened. Parent to parent, I’m telling her, how do you handle it?
“Zach’s always been chill,” she’s saying. “He’s fine.”
Yes, I repeat, but how do you handle it?
“On the inside,” she says, “or the outside?”
That answer works. I say goodbye to Zach Edey’s mom and head for the media room to write the story you’re reading now, the most typical American story ever.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue's Zach Edey all class to taunting IU fan after Assembly Hall win
