Oct. 4, 2010
LOS ANGELES - San Diego State sophomore Kawhi Leonard has been placed on the John R. Wooden Preseason Top 50 list, The Los Angeles Athletic Club announced Monday afternoon. Leonard is one of 50 student-athletes on the list, who, based on last year's performance and team records, are the early frontrunners for college basketball's most prestigious honor.
Leonard joins Aztec all-time scoring leader Brandon Heath as the only two players recognized by the Wooden Award during Steve Fisher's time at SDSU. Heath earned a spot on the preseason top-50 list prior to the 2006-07 season. In the 90-year history of San Diego State basketball, Leonard is the third student-athlete to garner the attention of the Wooden Award national selection committee as Michael Cage was named to the 1984 Wooden Award All-America team.
Hailing from Riverside, Calif., Leonard is one of 10 sophomores and one of three players from schools in the state of California (UCLA's Tyler Honeycutt, Nikola Vucevic of USC) on the list. Leonard is also one of two players representing the Mountain West Conference as Brigham Young's Jimmer Fredette joins him as a preseason honoree.
The 6-7 forward is coming off a campaign in which he was the first freshman in Mountain West history to be named to the all-MWC first team. He also earned MWC tournament MVP honors, MWC freshman of the year recognition and Sporting News all-freshman second-team accolades.
After averaging 12.7 points and 9.9 rebounds, he finished 2009-10 as one of four Division I freshmen, and the only one from a 2010 NCAA Tournament team, to lead his squad in points and rebounds. Last season, Leonard was a double-double machine, logging 17 to rank 13th in Division I. His 9.9 rebounding average, meanwhile, was tops in the Mountain West and ranked 22nd nationally.
Entering his sophomore campaign, Leonard has been named a preseason All-American and an all-conference performer by numerous college basketball experts and in preseason magazines.
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 minimum cumulative 2.0 GPA. Previous winners include such notables as Larry Bird ('79), Michael Jordan ('84), Tim Duncan ('97), Blake Griffin ('09) and Maya Moore of Connecticut ('09). Ohio State's Evan Turner and Connecticut's Tina Charles won the Award in 2010.
Since its inception, the John R. Wooden Award has contributed close to a million dollars to universities' general scholarship fund in the names of the All American recipients. The Award has also sent more than 1,000 underprivileged children to week-long college basketball camps in the Award's name. Additionally, the John R. Wooden Award partners with Special Olympics Southern California (SOSC) each year to host the Wooden Award Special Olympics Southern California Basketball Tournament. The day-long tournament, which brings together Special Olympic athletes and the All Americans, takes place at The Los Angeles Athletic Club on the Friday prior to the John R. Wooden Award Ceremony.
The 35th annual Wooden Award ceremony, which will include the announcement of the Men's and Women's Wooden Award winners, a special tribute to Coach Wooden and Wooden Award founder Duke Llewellyn, and the presentation of the Wooden Award All American Teams and the Legends of Coaching Award, will take place the weekend of April 8-10, 2011.