The national vote for the John R. Wooden Award – awarded to the best college basketball player – was revealed on Saturday, with 15 players, including Luka Garza, from Iowa, and Cade Cunningham, from Oklahoma, among those featured on the list.
Garza, the runner-up of the Madeira Prize last season for Obi Toppin, showed his status as Madeira’s favorite throughout the 2020-21 campaign. The 1.80m pivot enters the final weekend of the regular season with an average of 23.9 points per game, better in the Big Ten, with 8.4 rebounds per contest. Garza’s fifth-placed Hawkeyes spent most of the season in the AP’s top 10 and are the second seed in Joe Lunardi’s most recent NCAA tournament projection going to the end of Sunday’s regular season with Wisconsin.
Also in the mix for the award is Cunningham, whose sensational freshman season helped establish himself as a leading contender for No. 1 pick in the NBA’s 2021 draft. The 1.8m point guard averages 19.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game for a 17-7 Cowboys team that looks set to make it to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017 .
Other notable names in Wooden’s vote include Villanova playmaker Collin Gillespie, who maintained his place on the list despite suffering a knee injury at the end of the season in the win over Creighton on Wednesday. Gillespie averaged 14.0 points and 4.6 assists in the season for a Villanova team that won the Big East regular season title.
Ohio State striker EJ Liddell was the only player in the final vote who did not appear on the previous Wooden watch list, announced in early February. Liddell averages 15.9 points and 6.7 rebounds per game for an Ohio state team that is maintaining second place in Lunardi’s latest Bracketology update.
Excluded from the list since the February update were James Bouknight of UConn, Marcus Carr of Minnesota, Justin Champagnie of Pittsburgh, Quentin Grimes of Houston, Ron Harper Jr. of Rutgers and Carlik Jones of Louisville.