Four players who will be on the court this weekend at the women's Final Four, including UConn's Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd, are among the five finalists for the 2026 John R. Wooden Award, which is given annually to the best college basketball player in the country.
UCLA's Lauren Betts, Vanderbilt's Mikayla Blakes and Texas' Madison Booker also made the list.
Betts' Bruins and Booker's Longhorns will square off in the national semifinals on Friday (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) in Phoenix. In the first game of Friday's doubleheader, Strong (18.6 PPG, 7.6 RPG) and Fudd (17.5 PPG, 45.5% on 3-pointers) lead the Huskies against South Carolina (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Blakes, whose Commodores were ousted in the Elite Eight, led the country in scoring this season at 27.0 points per game.
Additionally, the five players were named to the 2026 Wooden Award All-America team.
Joining Betts, Blakes, Booker, Fudd and Strong are: Iowa State junior Audi Crooks, South Carolina sophomore Joyce Edwards, Notre Dame's junior Hannah Hidalgo, LSU's senior Flau'jae Johnson and TCU graduate student Olivia Miles.
Betts (17.2 PPG, 8.6 RPG) and Booker (19.3 PPG, 6.7 RPG) are finalists for the second consecutive season. Betts, Booker, Hidalgo and Miles also were named to the 2025 Wooden All-America team.
USC star JuJu Watkins was the 2025 Wooden Award winner.
