The list is comprised of 50 student athletes who, based on last year’s individual performance and team records, are the early
frontrunners
for college basketball’s most prestigious honor.
Transfers, freshmen and medical redshirts are not eligible for the
preseason
list. These players and others who excel throughout the season will be
evaluated and considered for December’s Midseason list and the
official
voting ballot released in March.
West Virginia was one of nine schools with two players chosen for the list. Joining Butler and Ebanks are
Kansas (Serron Collins, Cole Aldrich), Michigan State (Kalin Lucas, Raymar Morgan)
Duke
(Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer), Michigan (DeShawn Sims, Manny Harris), North Carolina (Ed Davis, Deon Thompson), Purdue (Robbie Hummel, E’Twaun Moore),
Connecticut (Kemba Walker, Jerome Dyson), and Villanova (Scottie Reynolds,
Corey Fisher).
Eleven conferences are represented on the Wooden Award Preseason List.
Leading the way is the Big East (11), followed by the ACC (10), Big 10
(8),
SEC (7), Big 12 (6), Pac-10 (3), and Atlantic 10, CAA, Conference USA,
WAC
and West Coast with one apiece.
Devin Ebanks
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In late December, the Wooden Award Committee will release the Midseason
Top
30 list, followed in March by the National Ballot, consisting of
approximately 20 top players who have proven to their universities that
they
are also making progress toward graduation and maintaining a cumulative
2.0
GPA. The Wooden Award All-American Team will be announced the week of
the
“Elite Eight” round during the NCAA Tournament.
The 34th annual Wooden Award ceremony, which will include the
announcement
of the Men's and Women's Wooden Award winner, and the presentation of
the
Wooden Award All-American Teams and the Legends of Coaching Award, will
take
place the weekend of April 9-11, 2010.
Created in 1976, the John R. Wooden Award is the most prestigious
individual
honor in college basketball. It is bestowed upon the nation’s best
player
at an institution of higher education who has proven to his or her
university that he or she is making progress toward graduation and
maintaining a cumulative 2.0 GPA.