Young Named To Wooden And Cousy Watch Lists

Oklahoma freshman guard Trae Young was named to a pair of midseason watch lists on Monday. Young was selected to the John R. Wooden Award's Late Season Top 20 and is one of 10 candidates for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award.

A 6-2 guard from Norman, Young leads the nation in scoring (29.8 points per game) and assists (9.7) while shooting .445 from the field and .393 from behind the 3-point line. No player in recorded NCAA history has finished a season leading the country in both scoring and assists.

In 22 games, Young has put together 11 double-doubles, 19 20-plus-point games, eight 30-plus-point games and four 40-plus-point games. By dishing out 22 assists against Northwestern State on Dec. 19, he tied the NCAA record for most assists in a game (assists became official in 1983-84) while breaking both Oklahoma and Big 12 records (both were 18 assists).

Young already owns the Oklahoma program record for total assists (214), 3-pointers (92) and made foul shots (173) in a freshman season. Young is sitting in second in freshman points by a Sooner (655), trailing only OU great Wayman Tisdale (810).

The players on the Wooden Late Season 20 are considered strong candidates for the 2018 John R. Wooden Award Men’s Player of the Year. The award is bestowed upon the nation’s best basketball player at an NCAA Division I university who has proven to his university that he is making progress towards graduation and maintaining a minimum cumulative 2.0 GPA. Previous winners include Larry Bird (1979), Michael Jordan (1984) and Tim Duncan (1997).

Oklahoma is the only school with multiple John R. Wooden Award winners over the past 14 seasons with Buddy Hield (2016) and Blake Griffin (2009) each earning the honor. Only one school (Duke) has ever had three student-athletes receive the award within a 10-year stretch.

Named after Hall of Famer and former Boston Celtic and Holy Cross guard, the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award is in its fifteenth year of recognizing the top point guards in Division I men’s college basketball. A national committee comprised of top college basketball personnel determined the watch list of 20 candidates in October, which has now been narrowed to just 10. In March, five finalists will be presented to Mr. Cousy and the Hall of Fame’s selection committee to select a winner.

The winner of both awards will be honored at ESPN’s College Basketball Awards Show in Los Angeles on Friday, April 6, 2018.