UConn's Paige Bueckers, USC's JuJu Watkins and Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo headline the top 15 women's players on the ballot for the John R. Wooden Award, which was announced on ESPN's "College GameDay" on Sunday.
Bueckers is coming off a season in which she won Big East Player of the Year for the third time. She led the Huskies to an undefeated conference record while averaging 18.6 points and 5.0 assists in a team-high 29.4 minutes per game. Heading into conference tournament play, she was averaging a 50-40-90 shooting split. Bueckers won the Wooden Award in 2021, becoming the first freshman to ever receive the honor.
Watkins was named Big Ten Player of the Year -- the first Trojans player to receive such an honor since 1988, when Cherie Nelson was Pac-10 Player of the Year -- while also earning unanimous All-Big Ten First Team and All-Defensive Team honors. Behind Watkins' 24.7 points per game, USC won a regular-season conference title for the first time since 1994 and plays in Sunday's Big Ten tournament final against UCLA.
Once a front-runner for the player of the year award, Hidalgo's play has dropped a bit lately, and the Irish lost to the Blue Devils in the ACC tournament semifinals. Still, Hidalgo put up a strong enough campaign to win ACC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, making her the third player in conference history to claim both awards in the same season. Hidalgo is averaging 24.2 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 3.6 steals, the latter leading the ACC and good for fourth in the country.
Bueckers, Watkins and Hidalgo are joined by two other players on the ballot who won their conference player of the year awards: Texas' Madison Booker (SEC) and TCU's Hailey Van Lith (Big 12).
UConn's Sarah Strong is the only freshman on the top-15 ballot.
