COLUMN: College basketball's big men dominate in big ways
What do Zach Edey, DJ Burns Jr., Donovan Clingan and the last five NBA MVP winners, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic, have in common? Besides being exceptional basketball players, they are all big men, measuring 6-foot-9 inches or taller, with the largest of the group being Edey, who is listed at 7-foot-4.
Big men are making their way back into the limelight in an era of basketball that has been dominated by long-range shooters and flashy dribblers.
The big man in basketball has gone through a complete transformation in previous years. A position that used to worry about height and strength is now a position of footwork, shooting ability and, of course, height. Adding a jump shot, crisp footwork and fundamentally sound free-throw shooting has allowed bigs to become increasingly dominant.
In this year's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, the bigs have been the stars. Many teams have relied on their standout performances to propel them to the next round. Notably, UConn and Purdue, two of the tournament's powerhouses, have witnessed exceptional play from their big men, further solidifying their importance.
Throughout the season, Edey showed that he was a dominant force down low, leading the Boilermakers in scoring with 25 points per game (PPG). As tournament time came around, Edey rose up to a totally different level of dominance, averaging 30 PPG and 16.3 rebounds per game. In short: Edey has been unstoppable.
For the Huskies, the dominance from their center comes at the other end of the floor on defense. UConn wears down its opponents from the opening tip with physical play, especially in the paint. Clingan is the center of this strong defense, both physically and metaphorically.
In his past three games, Clingan has been a problem in the paint for opposing players, averaging approximately 4.6 blocks per game and nearly 11 rebounds per game in his last three national tournament outings.
The tournament's Cinderella team, NC State, has run through its opponents heavily due to Burns Jr.'s outstanding play down low. The 6-foot-9, 275-pound giant has averaged 18.25 PPG throughout four games in the NCAA Tournament. His upcoming matchup with Edey will be the battle of the brutes.
Even here on the Banks, the Rutgers men's basketball team saw senior center Clifford Omoruyi have a stellar season on both ends of the floor. Each game of his four-year career saw the 6-foot-11 behemoth make several huge plays for his team on both offense and defense.
In 2024, Omoruyi led the Scarlet Knights in rebounds and was the second-leading PPG scorer. His one-handed slam dunks were also a sight to see, shifting momentum in some of Rutgers' big wins in the last few years. In 121 games with the Knights, Omoruyi swatted away 221 shots, which puts him at sixth in program history.
Teams and coaches across college basketball are grappling with the daunting task of stopping a player who can drive into the paint and shoot effectively from the charity stripe. With the college basketball season reaching the Final Four, the puzzle of how to contain these versatile big men without fouling remains unsolved.
While these players have been dominant so far in college, there are still aspects of each player's game that need to improve in order to have a successful professional career. Players like Edey, Clingan and Burns Jr. need to develop more lateral quickness, mobility and more of a jump shot from long-range to fit the mold of NBA big men today.
Even still, the big men reign supreme in the college basketball world.
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