LOS ANGELES, Calif. (November 14, 2023) – The John R. Wooden Award® presented by Principal® announced its Preseason Top 50 Watch List today on ESPN’s SportsCenter and on ESPN.com. The list was also highlighted during ESPN’s coverage of the Champions Classic. 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.

The 2023 Wooden Award Winner Zach Edey (Purdue) headlines the Preseason Top 50 along with 2021 Wooden Award All American Hunter Dickinson (Kansas).  Three schools lead with three selections on the Preseason Top 50: Creighton (Trey Alexander, Ryan Kalkbrenner and Baylor Scheierman), Duke (Kyle Filipowski, Tyrese Proctor and Jeremy Roach), and Kansas (Dickinson, Dajuan Harris Jr. and Kevin McCullar Jr.). Several other schools boast multiple players on the list: Connecticut (Donovan Clingan and Tristen Newton), Gonzaga (Graham Ike and Ryan Nembhard), Houston (L.J. Cryer and Jamal Shead), Marquette (Kam Jones and Tyler Kolek), Miami (FL) (Norchad Omier and Nijel Pack), North Carolina (Armando Bacot and RJ Davis), and USC (Isaiah Collier and Boogie Ellis).

Of the 50 players on the preseason list, 41 are upperclassmen, including 29 seniors. The recent trend of recognizing outstanding freshmen continues with three named to the Preseason Top 50: Collier (USC), Justin Edwards (Kentucky), and Ja’Kobe Walter (Baylor).

The Preseason Top 50 represents 11 conferences. The ACC and Big East leads all conferences with ten selections each, followed by the Big 12 with seven, Pac-12 with six, the Big Ten and SEC with five each, the WCC with three, and the American, Atlantic 10, Missouri Valley, and Mountain West with one selection apiece.

The players on the list are considered strong candidates for the 2024 John R. Wooden Award Men’s Player of the Year presented by Principal. 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 2024 John R. Wooden Award will be presented in Los Angeles 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 America Teams for men and women and the annual selection of the Wooden Award Legend 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), Breanna Stewart (’15; ’16), and last year’s recipients, Caitlin Clark of Iowa and Zach Edey of Purdue.

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.

The Legends of Coaching Award presented by Principal will be presented to University of Kentucky coach John Calipari, along with the Wooden Award Men’s and Women’s Players of the Year on April 12, 2024. For up-to-date information on the Wooden Award, please go to www.woodenaward.com and follow the Wooden Award on Facebook at www.facebook.com/woodenaward and @WoodenAward on Twitter and Instagram.

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John R. Wooden Award

Presented by Principal

Preseason Top 50

#   indicates player selected as a 2020-21 Wooden Award All American

*   indicates player selected as the 2022-23 Wooden Award Winner