As 2024 comes to a close, SI is recognizing the top performer in each sport—athletes who have excelled on the field through record-breaking or championship performances, or those who have distinguished themselves through significant off-field achievements as well.

Zach Edey said last year his motivation to be great doesn’t come from a Kobe Bryant-esque mentality of trying to prove doubters wrong. 

The 7′ 4″ center is certainly good at doing it, though.

Edey completed a transformational college basketball career this past spring with a trophy case that rivals any college player in recent memory. Two National Player of the Year awards. A scoring title. A pair of Big Ten regular season titles, as well as a Big Ten tournament crown. Most important to his Purdue legacy: a trip to the Final Four, the program’s first in more than 40 years. 

But Edey’s rise to becoming the most decorated college player in at least 15 years and a top-10 NBA draft choice was anything but linear. As a high school prospect, few coaches even bothered to recruit Edey, who was ranked No. 436 in his class by 247Sports. Purdue coaches saw something in the Canadian big man who was still relatively new to the game and turned him into their greatest player development success story ever. He came off the bench his first two years, then exploded in 2022–23 into not just a star, but the best player in college basketball. But after that ascent to superstar status came a humbling couple of months—first with the shocking loss to No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson in the 2023 NCAA tournament, then largely being dismissed by NBA scouts as a potential late-second round pick in that summer’s draft.

All that set the stage for a 2024 in which more pressure was put on Edey than any individual college player in quite some time. Very few seasons in college hoops are truly “Final Four or bust” given the unpredictability of March Madness, but that’s the mandate that Edey walked into. Every road game was the opposing team’s Super Bowl, and fans stormed the court after all three Purdue regular-season losses. He heard every criticism, including the “he’s just tall” narrative that his coach Matt Painter said was so “moronic” that he joked those who said it should be banned from tweeting for three months.

“People have no idea the burden you carry when you’re as good as he is,” Painter said in April. 

And despite all that, Edey didn’t just replicate his historic ’22-23 campaign—he built upon it. He got quicker laterally to defend better when forced out onto the perimeter. He improved his conditioning to be able to stay on the floor for longer stretches. He mastered the art of drawing fouls and knocked down more than 70% of his free throws. 

Beating UConn in the national title game would have completed the ultimate redemption story and elevated Edey’s standing even further among the college game’s all-time greats. That said, Edey’s final performance on a college floor was nothing short of epic. His 37-point, 10-rebound double-double kept Purdue in the game in the first half and was the only answer to UConn’s second-half barrage, scoring at will against the best post defender in the country in Donovan Clingan. In some ways, that Monday night in Phoenix was the perfect illustration of Edey’s four-year career: No matter what teams did to try to slow him down, Edey always met the moment. 

In June, Edey completed the second part of his 2023 redemption story. This time, on draft night. Edey had clearly improved his draft stock throughout the season, but there was still plenty of skepticism about how he would fit in the NBA  given concerns about his mobility and inability to stretch the floor. By draft day, the belief was Edey would go somewhere in the first round, but hearing his name announced at No. 9 to the Memphis Grizzlies was still a bit of a shock. Edey got that draft day call not from the green room in New York City, but instead in a backyard in West Lafayette, Ind., with his Purdue teammates and coaches. Getting to celebrate climbing to the top of the mountain a year after being humbled and getting to do it with the people who’d been with him at every step of that journey? That’s a draft night moment more meaningful than any red carpet photo or handshake with the commissioner. 

The NBA will bring a whole new set of challenges to overcome for one of the all-time greats in college basketball. But after how Edey navigated the highs and lows of the last two years, you’d be a fool to bet against him again.