Tall order

 Watched Purdue center Zach Edey drop 38 on the Michigan State Spartans the other day, and afterward Michigan State coach Tom Izzo seemed less than charitable about that. Hinted, in so many words, that how good does a team have to be when all it has to do is throw the ball into the 7-4 guy all the time?

Maybe Izzo didn't intend for it to come off that way, to give him the benefit of the doubt. But the trolls on the Magic Twitter Thingy who followed his lead definitely meant it when they started chirping that Edey ain't all that, he's just tall.

The Blob says this, having watched the guy play: Watch the guy play.

Yeah, he's tall. Yeah, he collects a lot of loose ends around the glass because of that. But if you think he just stands around out there collecting points, rebounds and dust -- if you think he doesn't have any skills -- you must have started watching basketball yesterday.

I didn't. And I noticed some things the other day:

* One, he's the first low-blocks player I've seen in quite a spell who's developed an effective hook shot as a major part of his arsenal.

No big man seems to do that anymore, except sporadically. And I don't know why, because it's a hell of a weapon. But until Edey started tossing them in on a regular basis, it was the eight-track tape of basketball moves. 

* Two, he regularly beats double teams because he's not afraid of contact. 

Michigan State consistently doubled him the other day, and he still went to the tin and scored. Part of that is because, yes, he's 7-4. But if he were just a very tall traffic cone, he couldn't do that.

* Three, when teams collapse on him, he's a pretty effective passer out of it.

I wouldn't say he's great at it. But he finds the guy who's got the open look more often than not. And the rest of the Purdue cast is very good at knowing what to do when teams collapse on Edey. Over and above everything else, this is a very smart basketball team.

* Finally, rebounds do not come to him because he's magnetized. 

His height is a huge plus, unquestionably, but he also goes and gets the ball off the glass. He's more aggressive than you think a 7-4 guy would be, or that the handful of players his size generally have been.

All of this makes silencing Edey a very tall order for most opponents.

I know. Dad joke.