That had to hurt! No foul called after Zach Edey lands on Gonzaga’s Ryan Nembhard

Big Ten fans have said all season that Zach Edey has gotten a kind whistle from the conference’s referees. Well, on Friday night in the Sweet 16 matchup between Gonzaga and Purdue in Big Ten country, Zags fans have started to agree. 

Purdue’s 7-foot-4 300-pound reigning National Player of the Year was battling for a rebound with 6-foot-tall 175-pound Ryan Nembhard and the Gonzaga point guard got the worst of the exchange. Edey took a swipe at the ball and the leaping Nembhard, taking him to the ground and landing on top. 

Now we know the answer to the age-old question; If a tree falls on top of an opposing point guard in the Sweet 16, does a referee's whistle make a sound? None did in Little Caesar’s arena on Friday. 

As the ball went out of bounds off the smushed Nembhard, the game went into a media timeout and Mark Few spent the first 30 seconds of it begging for a replay of the incident. 

Edey has yet to be whistled for a foul in Purdue's Sweet 16 contest with Gonzaga, only adding to the college basketball world's theories about the favorable whistle the presumptive two-time National Player of the Year has received all season long.

With just a few more attempts in this one, Zach Edey will be the first player to be awarded over 400 free throws in a single season since Pete Maravich in his 1969-70 campaign. On the climb to 400 from the 392 he entered this contest with, Edey will pass Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson for sixth and seventh on the all-time list. 

Purdue converted the subsequent possession out of the media stoppage into a three-pointer by Mason Gillis.