By Will Despart
The Sporting Tribune
The John R. Wooden Award will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this season. Leading up to the award ceremony on April 10, 2026, The Sporting Tribune in partnership with the Wooden Award and the Los Angeles Athletic Club will highlight past winners of the Wooden Award and the Legends of Coaching Award.
In an era where international talent is at an all-time high, it might be hard to believe that it’s only been just over two decades since Utah’s Andrew Bogut became the first foreign-born winner of the John R. Wooden Award.
Bogut’s 2004-05 sophomore campaign with the Utes placed him into an exclusive club of college basketball history, as he led the program to the Sweet 16 in the years immediately after longtime head coach and program builder Rick Majerus left the program and received consensus national player of the year honors as a result.
In the Utes’ first season under Ray Giacolletti, Bogut averaged 20.5 points and 12.2 rebounds per game to lead the team to a 25-4 regular season record overall, with a 13-1 mark in Mountain West play. Bogut’s most impressive outing of the season was a 31-point, 13-rebound clinic in a 71-62 conference win over Wyoming on Valentine’s Day, where he made 11-of-16 attempts from the field.
The Utes would eventually fall to New Mexico in the 2005 Mountain West championship game, but still received a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament as an at-large. Bogut continued his dominance in the first round of March Madness, pouring in 24 points on 9-of-13 shooting to lead Utah over a feisty No. 11 seed in UTEP before beating No. 3 seed Oklahoma in the Round of 32.
In the days after Bogut’s college career ended with a loss to Kentucky in the 2005 Sweet 16, he was awarded the Wooden Award with a decisive finish in the voting ahead of Duke’s JJ Redick and Illinois’ Dee Brown. Being from Australia, Bogut wasn’t too familiar with Coach Wooden’s legacy when he won the award but he still cherished the honor all the same.
“I’d heard the name before. College basketball isn’t very big in Australia,” Bogut told the Associated Press after winning the award in 2005. “He’s a legendary coach — one of the best of all-time … It’s very special just to have my name engraved on that trophy with the likes of Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Tim Duncan.”
Bogut joined another very exclusive club in basketball history a few months later, as the Milwaukee Bucks selected him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2005 NBA Draft. Bogut played 14 seasons in the NBA, winning a championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2015 in addition to earning third-team All-NBA honors with the Bucks in 2010.