INDIANAPOLIS (USBWA) – Fifteen players from the Power Five basketball conferences are represented on the U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Midseason Watch List for the Wayman Tisdale Award. The mid-January reveal is a whittling from the preseason list, which began with 25 players. An especially strong class led to a competitive mid-January voting intake from the 11-person USBWA board.
Many of the names on our Tisdale list are also represented on the 25-player Midseason Watch List for the Oscar Robertson Trophy.
“One of the primary storylines and talking points over the first 10 weeks of this terrific season has been the quality and collective talent of this freshman class,” USBWA President Matt Norlander said. “This really might be the best group of first-year players in the history of college basketball. It’s an amazing coup for the sport and should lead to significant interest nationwide in college basketball by the time we get to March. Our Midseason Watch List for the Tisdale Award is 15 names deep, but in speaking to the depth of the class: we had more than 25 freshmen receive a vote on ballots submitted by board members.”
Here are the 15 members of the Wayman Tisdale Award MIdseason Watch List:
Darius Acuff Jr., Arkansas
Nate Ament, Tennessee
Cameron Boozer, Duke
Mikel Brown Jr., Louisville
Brayden Burries, Arizona
Thijs De Ridder, Virginia
AJ Dybantsa, BYU
Kingston Flemings, Houston
Braylon Mullins, Connecticut
Ebuka Okorie, Stanford
Koa Peat, Arizona
Darryn Peterson, Kansas
Hannes Steinbach, Washington
Keaton Wagler, Illinois
Caleb Wilson, North Carolina
Since the 1988-89 season, the USBWA has named a men's freshman national player of the year and, since the 2010-11 season the award has been named for Wayman Tisdale, the late Oklahoma All-American. The award is voted on by the entire membership of the association at the end of the regular season.
The U.S. Basketball Writers Association was formed in 1956 at the urging of then-NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers. With some 800 members worldwide, it is one of the most influential organizations in college basketball. It has selected an All-America team since the 1956-57 season. For more information on the USBWA and the Oscar Robertson Trophy, contact executive director Malcolm Moran at 814-574-1485.