LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The John R. Wooden Award® presented by Wendy's® announced its Preseason Top 50 Watch List Tuesday on ESPN's SportsCenter and on ESPN.com, which included Virginia Tech redshirt-senior Keve Aluma. Chosen by a preseason poll of national college basketball experts, the list is comprised of 50 student-athletes who are the early front runners for the most prestigious honors in college basketball, the Wooden Award All American Team™ and Most Outstanding Player Award.
Three 2021 Wooden Award All-Americans headline the Preseason Top 50: Kofi Cockburn (Illinois), Hunter Dickinson (Michigan), and Drew Timme (Gonzaga). The top three schools in the AP Top 25 and Coaches Poll each have three selections on the Preseason Top 50: Gonzaga (Chet Holmgren, Andrew Nembhard, and Timme), UCLA (Tyger Campbell, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Johnny Juzang), and Kansas (Ochai Agbaji, Remy Martin, and David McCormack). Several other schools boast multiple players on the list: Alabama (Jahvon Quinerly and Jaden Shackelford), Baylor (Adam Flagler and Matthew Mayer), Duke (Paolo Banchero and Mark Williams), Illinois (Cockburn and Andre Curbelo), Kentucky (Kellan Grady and TyTy Washington Jr.), Memphis (Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren), Michigan (Dickinson and Caleb Houstan), North Carolina (Armando Bacot and Dawson Garcia), and Purdue (Jaden Ivey and Trevion Williams).
Of the 50 players on the preseason list, 35 are upperclassmen, including 17 seniors. The recent trend of recognizing outstanding freshmen continues with nine named to the Preseason Top 50: Patrick Baldwin Jr. (UW-Milwaukee), Banchero (Duke), Bates (Memphis), Kennedy Chandler (Tennessee), Duren (Memphis), Holmgren (Gonzaga), Houstan (Michigan), Jabari Smith (Auburn), and Washington (Kentucky).
The Preseason Top 50 represents 12 conferences. The Big Ten leads all conferences with ten selections, followed by the SEC with eight, the Big 12 with seven, the ACC with six, the Pac-12 and American with five each, the WCC with three, the Big East with two, and the Atlantic 10, Summit League, Mountain West, and Horizon with one selection apiece.
The players on the list are considered strong candidates for the 2022 John R. Wooden Award Men's Player of the Year presented by Wendy's. Players not chosen to the preseason list are still eligible for the Wooden Award™ midseason list, late season list, and the National Ballot. The National Ballot consists of 15 top players who have proven to their universities that they meet or exceed the qualifications of the Wooden Award. Nearly 1,000 voters will rank in order 10 of those 15 players when voting opens prior to the NCAA Tournament and will allow voters to take into consideration performance during early round games. The Wooden Award All American Team™ will be announced the week of the "Elite Eight" round of the NCAA Tournament. The winner of the 2022 John R. Wooden Award will be presented by Wendy's following the NCAA Tournament in April.
About the John R. Wooden Award
Created in 1976, the John R. Wooden Award Program hosts the most prestigious honors in college basketball recognizing the Wooden Award Most Outstanding Player for men and women, the Wooden Award All-American Teams for men and women and the annual selection of the Wooden Award Legends of Coaching recipient. Honorees have proven to their university that they meet or exceed the qualifications of the John R. Wooden Award as set forth by Coach Wooden and the Wooden Award Steering Committee, including making progress towards graduation and maintaining at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA. Previous winners include Larry Bird ('79), Michael Jordan ('84), Tim Duncan ('97), Kevin Durant ('07), Candace Parker ('07; '08), Maya Moore ('09; '11), Chiney Ogwumike ('14), Breanna Stewart ('15 and '16) and last year's recipients, Paige Bueckers of Connecticut and Luka Garza of Iowa.
Since its inception, the John R. Wooden Award has contributed nearly one million dollars to the universities' general scholarship fund in the names of the Wooden Award All-American recipients and has sent more than 1,000 underprivileged children to week-long college basketball camps. Additionally, the John R. Wooden Award partners with the Special Olympics Southern California (SOSC) each year to host the Wooden Award Special Olympics Southern California Basketball Tournament. The day-long tournament brings together Special Olympics athletes and Wooden Award All-Americans and coaches in attendance. It is hosted at the Los Angeles Athletic Club during the John R. Wooden Award Weekend.
For up-to-date information on the Wooden Award, please go to www.woodenaward.com and follow the Wooden Award on Facebook and @WoodenAward on Twitter and Instagram.