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The Wooden Award is one of the most prestigious awards in college basketball. It's given annually to men's and women's basketball players who excelled during the NCAA season.
Forty-six men's cagers have won the Wooden Award since it was first held in 1977, while 14 female players have received the accolade since 2004. Let's dive deeper into the accolade by exploring the criteria for judging the nominees and the past winners of the prestigious trophy.
What is the Wooden Award in College Basketball?
The Wooden Award is presented annually to the most outstanding collegiate player of the year in men's and women's basketball. It's named after John Wooden, who won the National Collegiate Player of the Year in 1932 while playing at Purdue and guided UCLA to 10 national titles as coach.
The Players of the Year for men's basketball are selected by a panel of 1,000 college basketball experts who come from the nation's 50 states. The women's version of the trophy is voted by 250 sportswriters and sportscasters around the US.
For the men's side, the 26-man National Advisory Board selects the 20 players who have excelled during the season and meet the criteria established by the Award's founders. As for the women's side, the 12-member National Advisory Board picks 15 candidates who are included in the ballot.
The winners of the Wooden Award are the players who receive the most votes for both genders. They are announced following the national championship game.
What are the criteria for the Wooden Award?
According to the Wooden Award website, the National Advisory Board picks and seeds the candidates for each category.
The players selected are certified by the university that they've met the criteria for the award. They include: candidates must be full-time students in their college or university; they must be full-time students that have a cumulative grade point average of 2.00 since enrolling in their school; must exhibit excellent on and off the court character; a team player that excels in both offense and defense and candidates are being evaluated on their performance in the entire season.
Has anyone won the Wooden Award twice?
Since its inception in 1977, only two men's basketball players have won the award twice.
The first was 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson, who won back-to-back Wooden awards in 1982 and 1983 while playing for Virginia. Forty-one years later, another seven-foot-four player duplicated Sampson's feat as Purdue's Zach Edey was voted the Wooden Award winner for being the outstanding men's basketball player in 2023 and 2024.
The women's side has had more two-time winners with seven. They are LSU's Seimone Augustus (2005-06), Tennessee's Candace Parker (2007-08), UConn's Maya Moore (2009 and 2011), Baylor's Brittney Griner (2012-13), UConn's Breanna Stewart (2015-16), Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu (2019-20) and Iowa's Caitlin Clark (2023-24).
Wooden Award winners by year
