Arizona tried something new vs. Zach Edey. He hit new highs to exploit it in Purdue win.

INDIANAPOLIS — In a game where Purdue’s backcourt stepped up, All-American center Zach Edey became the facilitator.

Arizona did a good job guarding Edey — as good as a job they could on the 7-4 reigning national player of the year. Wildcats coach Tommy Lloyd put a frontcourt double-team on Edey at the start with 7-foot Oumar Ballo and 6-foot-7 Keshad Johnson.

“I might have complicated things a little bit too much for our guys and made too many decisions,” Lloyd said. “We missed a few coverages that we can get better at. But Zach Edey is a great player, and you tip your hat to him. We thought we did a really good job on him for the most part and got him to miss a few.”

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Arizona only practiced the double-team, debuting in-game against Purdue. And they weren’t prepared — making holes easy to exploit.

“They don’t really double, and it’s kind of what (coach Matt) Painter always says, ‘When your team doesn’t really work on it, you can’t be that good at it,’” Edey said. “They went to the double today, and they would double really hard, but their rotations were off because they didn’t really work on it, so I was able to split that a few times.”

Edey scored 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting, just below his averages of 24.8 points per game. But when Edey knew he couldn’t get a shot in himself, he found another way to impact Purdue's offense.

Edey, who has led the Boilers in scoring in all but three games this season (Saturday included), became a passing machine, finding inventive ways to get the ball to his backcourt for a career-high five assists.

In the process, Purdue’s backcourt took advantage of Arizona’s botched rotations, as starting guards Fletcher Loyer (27) and Braden Smith (26) combined for 53 points in No. 4 Purdue’s 92-84 victory over No. 1 Arizona. 

“(Edey) is used to being in a double team, and he’s got a lot of shooters around him,” Johnson said. “We tried to make it as tough as possible on him, but he made a lot of good plays out of that double-team.”

With the top-ranked victory, Purdue has staked its claim to be the No. 1 team in the nation again on Monday.