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It is widely held that the college basketball season isn’t truly complete until the Wooden Award has been presented and now after all the media frenzy from March Madness extending beyond the Final Four, competitive trash talking riling up sports fans throughout the nation and White House invitations formally extended and accepted by the Championship team, we can finally say one of the most exciting seasons in recent NCAA Division I basketball history has come to a close. The finalists of the 47th annual presentation of the John R. Wooden Award Presented by Wendy’s Gala accepted their hardware from the Los Angeles Athletic Club in downtown Los Angeles. Caitlin Clark of the University of Iowa is the winner of the 2023 John R. Wooden Award presented by Wendy’s as the most outstanding player in women’s college basketball and Zach Edey of Purdue University is the winner of the 2023 John R. Wooden Award presented by Wendy’s as the most outstanding player in men’s college basketball. University of South Carolina women’s basketball Coach Dawn Staley was also the recipient of the Wooden Award Legend of Coaching honor.
College basketball’s most prestigious award was also presented to honor the Men’s and Women’s Wooden Award All-American Teams. The Wooden Award All-American Team is comprised of ten student-athletes who were the top vote-getters in the quest to earn college basketball’s most prestigious honor. The ten-player team, alphabetically, consists of: Zach Edey (Purdue), Trayce Jackson-Davis (Indiana), Jaime Jaquez Jr. (UCLA), Brandon Miller (Alabama), Jalen Pickett (Penn State), Marcus Sasser (Houston), Drew Timme (Gonzaga), Oscar Tshiebwe (Kentucky), Azuolas Tubelis (Arizona), and Jalen Wilson (Kansas). The five finalists for the 2023 John R. Wooden Award Presented by Wendy’s Men’s Player of the Year are: Zach Edey, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Marcus Sasser, Drew Timme, and Jalen Wilson. The five-player women’s team, alphabetically, consists of: Aliyah Boston (South Carolina), Cameron Brink (Stanford), Caitlin Clark (Iowa), Mackenzie Holmes (Indiana), and Maddy Siegrist (Villanova).
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), Chiney Ogwumike (’14), and last year’s recipients, Aliyah Boston of South Carolina and Oscar Tshiebwe of Kentucky.
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.
