Michigan State basketball must do what no one's done this year: Stop Zach Edey, win at Purdue

EAST LANSING — Michigan State basketball faces its tallest task yet Sunday.

Figuratively, in trying to recapture momentum after back-to-back home losses while attempting to win at No. 3 Purdue for the first time in a decade.

Literally, in finally figuring out a way to slow down the Boilermakers’ behemoth Zach Edey, the reigning Big Ten and national player of the year.

“What I'm looking for is: are we playing better, are we playing as good as we can play?” coach Tom Izzo said after practice Wednesday. “If we play as good as we can play and we don't win, I can live with some of that. I can't live with not playing very well and not winning.”

The Spartans (17-11, 9-8 Big Ten) will try to right things when they face first-place Purdue (25-3, 14-3) in their lone regular-season meeting of the season. Tipoff is 8 p.m. in West Lafayette, Indiana (Fox).

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The Boilermakers have won the last three in the series and seven of the last eight meetings. MSU has lost six straight at Mackey Arena and hasn’t won there since a 94-79 victory on Feb. 20, 2014.

Meantime, Purdue is 14-0 at home this season and hasn’t lost a Big Ten game in Mackey since Feb. 25, 2023 against Indiana.

“It's never easy winning at Mackey,” sophomore center Carson Cooper said Wednesday. “But I think if we just stay together, we've seen other teams that have (beaten Purdue). Ohio State's done it, Minnesota came really close. So being able to see other teams, how they played them, to be able to kind of do what they did is gonna be big for us.”

A big reason for that? The man known as “Big Z.”

Edey leads the Big Ten at 23.7 points and 11.8 rebounds a game this season and is all but certain to repeat as conference player of the year. He's averaging 24.9 points and 13.2 boards in league play.

The 7-foot-4, 300-pound Canadian scored 70 points and grabbed 30 rebounds in two MSU losses to the Boilermakers last season. In six career games against the Spartans, the senior is averaging 20.3 points and 8.3 rebounds while shooting 56.8% from the field and making 22 of 30 free-throw attempts.

Cooper got extended action as a freshman against Purdue a year ago. Even to the 6-11, 240-pound MSU center, Edey appears otherworldly.

“I think of what I said last year, and my mom reminded me,” Cooper said. “I said after the game he's like a tree trunk, so it's kind of like playing (against) a tree trunk. He's as solid as it gets and is really tough to move. But what can you do? You're a basketball player, so you're gonna adapt to certain players.

Added 6-1 senior guard Tyson Walker: “(Edey) is the biggest human I've ever seen. … There's no lie in his height or anything.”

MSU hasn’t played since Sunday’s heartbreaking, last-second 60-57 home loss to the Buckeyes. The Spartans, who also lost at Breslin Center to Iowa last week, are preparing for their third straight single-play game in a row and will get a fourth in the final five to wrap up the regular season next weekend when they travel to Indiana.

“Getting a week helps you work on your game even more. You can really get after it, you can really practice hard, like fully,” said Tyson Walker, whose 18.1 points lead MSU. “With extra time, we can do things one day, watch it and recognize you don't like how we did it and change it because we got time. …

“Even though we lost, it's still good to have time. It gives us time to get better. We feel like we've been playing every other day.”

Izzo said he plans to deploy his big men in waves to try and slow down Edey. That means a rotation of different looks in Cooper, 6-9 senior Mady Sissoko, 6-9 sophomore Jaxon Kohler and potentially 6-11 freshman Xavier Booker will try to do what the Spartans couldn’t last season — try to wear down Edey in transition.

“Us having good versatility at the 5-man, I think, is gonna be really beneficial, being able to rotate in multiple guys while we're fresh and not burning us out,” Cooper said. “We want to run.”

However, Purdue also hasn’t played since winning Sunday at Michigan, 84-76. And the Boilermakers are more than just Edey, featuring a talented sophomore group that includes an emerging star at point guard in Braden Smith (12.8 points, 7.3 assists, 5.8 rebounds) and fellow starting guard Fletcher Loyer (10.1 points, 40.4% 3-pointers) and 6-9 forward Trey Kaufman-Renn (6.5 points, 4.4 rebounds). Fifth-year senior guard Lance Jones averages 13 points.

“(Edey) scores the ball, he rebounds. He knows how to be big. So we just gotta try to do our best to help the bigs down there,” Walker said. “But also just not let anybody else kind of have their big day against us. Just a full team effort.”

Before last week’s losses to Iowa and Ohio State, MSU had won eight of its previous 10 games. Izzo said he used one of the extra days to show his team how close they have been in some of their defeats, including all the missed layups and free throws and open jump shots that led to second-half leads vanishing against the Buckeyes, Minnesota and Illinois. The Spartans' eight Big Ten losses have been by an average of 7.9 points, with three of the last five decided by three points.

“We've seen what we can do,” Walker said. “A bad stretch can make you lose games. So it's just not having those stretches, that's the main thing.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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Next up: Boilermakers

Matchup: Michigan State (17-11, 9-8 Big Ten) at No. 3 Purdue (25-3, 14-3).

Tipoff: 8 p.m. Saturday; Mackey Arena, West Lafayette, Indiana.

TV/radio: Fox; WJR-AM (760).

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball's big tasks: Stop Zach Edey, win at Purdue