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Iowa’s Garza a finalist for Wooden

LOS ANGELES — Udoka Azubuike of Kansas, Luka Garza of Iowa, Markus Howard of Marquette, Myles Powell of Seton Hall and Obi Toppin of Dayton are the five finalists for the John R. Wooden Award as the nation’s top college basketball player.

The 44th annual award will be presented on Tuesday during ESPN’s “SportsCenter” broadcast at 5 p.m. EDT.

The Los Angeles Athletic Club announced the 10-member Wooden All American team on Wednesday. In addition to the five finalists, the other members are: Devon Dotson of Kansas, Malachi Flynn of San Diego State, Filip Petrusev of Gonzaga, Payton Pritchard of Oregon and Cassius Winston of Michigan State.

Voting took place from March 16-23. Besides taking into consideration a player’s entire season, the voting period usually includes the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament. But March Madness was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Wooden Award had been scheduled to be presented April 10 at the College Basketball Awards in Los Angeles, but the event was canceled with California under a statewide stay-at-home mandate.

Last month, Garza was awarded the Pete Newell Big Man of the Year Award by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and five major news outlets named Garza as its national player of the year: Sporting News, Basketball Times, Stadium, Bleacher Report, and ESPN.

Garza is the first Iowa men’s basketball player to earn national player of the year distinction. He was also a unanimous consensus first-team All-America selection. He joins former Hawkeyes Murray Wier (1948) and Charles Darling (1952) as the program’s only consensus first team All-Americans.

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