LOS ANGELES, Calif. (November 14, 2023) - The John R. Wooden Award® presented by Principal® announced the Women’s Preseason Top 50 Watch List on ESPN’s SportsCenter and on ESPN.com. 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.

2021 Wooden Award winner Paige Bueckers (Connecticut) & 2023 Wooden Award winner Caitlin Clark (Iowa) headline the list along with 2023 Wooden Award All Americans Cameron Brink (Stanford) and Mackenzie Holmes (Indiana). Several schools have multiple selections on the list, led by LSU (Flau’jae Johnson, Aneesah Morrow, Angel Reese and Hailey Van Lith) with four selections.  They are followed by Connecticut (Bueckers, Aaliyah Edwards and Azzi Fudd), Ohio State (Cotie McMahon, Jacy Sheldon and Celeste Taylor) and UCLA (Lauren Betts, Charisma Osborne and Kiki Rice) with three selections each.  Then we have Baylor (Sarah Andrews and Darianna Littlepage-Buggs), Kansas State (Gabby Gregory and Ayoka Lee), North Carolina (Deja Kelly and Alyssa Ustby), Notre Dame (Sonia Citron and Olivia Miles), South Carolina (Kamilla Cardoso and Te-Hina Paopao), Stanford (Brink and Hannah Jump), USC (Rayah Marshall and JuJu Watkins), Utah (Gianna Kneepkens and Alissa Pili), and Virginia Tech (Georgia Amoore and Elizabeth Kitley) with two selections each.

The list represents eight conferences: the Pac-12 leads all conferences with 11 selections, followed by the ACC with ten selections, the Big Ten and SEC with nine each, the Big 12 with six, the Big East with three and the Ivy League and MAC with one selection apiece.

The players on the list are considered strong candidates for the 2024 John R. Wooden Award Women’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 2022-23 Wooden Award All American

*indicates player selected as 2022-23 Wooden Award Winner

**indicates player selected as 2020-21 Wooden Award Winner