Wichita State’s Ron Baker speaks at a news conference, with teammate Fred VanVleet, left, before practice at the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, March 19, 2015, in Omaha, Neb. The No. 15 Bears were one of the few programs to land multiple players on the list.
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Louisville did not have a player voted onto the Top 50 although the Atlantic Coast Conference is represented by nine guys – two from Duke, North Carolina and Virginia, all Top 10 teams.
The 6-foot-3 Seattle native, who is the son of National Basketball Association Hall of Fame and Oregon State great Gary Payton, is one of five players in the Pac-12 named to the preseason list. The Wooden Award National Advisory Board will select 25 players to the Midseason Top 25 in early January.
Kentucky and IN are the only two teams with three nominees on the 50-player pre-season watch list for the John Wooden Award. Both were listed on Tuesday’s John R. Wooden Award Preseason Top 50 list.
Brown, a consensus top-5 recruit nationally, is averaging 15.5 points and four rebounds per game. Additionally, last season Ellis was the only player in the Big 12 to rank in the top seven in scoring (7th), field goal percentage (7th at 45.7) and rebounding (4th) as he was named the league player of the week three times. Texas Tech Head Men’s Basketball Coach, Tubby Smith, will be presented with the Legends of Coaching trophy during the show as well.
The John R. Wooden Award National Ballot will consist of 15 top players who have proven to their universities that they are also making progress toward graduation and maintaining at least a 2.0 cumulative grade-point average.
Trey Burke last won Wooden Award honors for MI in the 2012-13 season.
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.
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Ulis, who also starts the season on the Bob Cousy Award watch list as well as the Lute Olson Award watch list, appeared in 37 games during the 2014-15 season.
