Tuttle named to Wooden Award All-America Team

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Los Angeles Athletic Club announced the 2015 John R. Wooden Award All Americans on a 30-minute show on ESPNU on March 30. Selected by nearly 1,000 national college basketball media members and the Award’s former winners, the All American team is made up of 10 student-athletes who were the top vote-getters in the quest to earn college basketball’s most prestigious honor. The ten-player team consists of, alphabetically, Ron Baker (Wichita State); Malcolm Brogdon (Virginia); Willie Cauley-Stein (Kentucky); Jerian Grant (Notre Dame); Frank Kaminsky (Wisconsin); Jahlil Okafor (Duke); D’Angelo Russell (Ohio State); Seth Tuttle (Northern Iowa); Kyle Wiltjer (Gonzaga); and Delon Wright (Utah). The five players who are invited to Los Angeles are Cauley-Stein, Grant, Kaminsky, Okafor and Russell.

The Wooden Award ceremony will honor and reveal the Men’s and Women’s Wooden Award winners, and will include the presentation of the Wooden Award All American Teams and the Legends of Coaching Award, which in 2015 will go to San Diego State Head Men’s Basketball Coach Steve Fisher. This announcement will be televised live on ESPN2 from Club Nokia in Los Angeles at 5 p.m. on Friday April 10 as part of the first ever ESPN College Basketball Awards Show Presented by Wendy’s.

Kaminsky, Okafor and Cauley-Stein will see their seasons continue into this weekend’s Final Four. Kaminsky had 29 points to lead the Badgers over Arizona in the West Regional, while Cauley-Stein paced his Kentucky squad to a close win over Grant’s Irish team in the Midwest Region. Yesterday, Okafor had 9 points and 8 rebounds in the Blue Devils’ win over Gonzaga.

Voting was from March 16-23, and voters could take into consideration the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Fans voted through the Fan Voting site sponsored by Wendy’s. The women’s All Americans will be released tomorrow. As insisted upon by Coach Wooden at the Award’s creation 39 years ago, All Americans have proven to their universities that they are making progress toward graduation and are maintaining at least a cumulative 2.0 GPA.

Created in 1976, the John R. Wooden Award is the most prestigious individual honor in college basketball. Previous winners include such notables as Larry Bird (’79), Michael Jordan (’84), Tim Duncan (’97), Candace Parker (’07 and ’08), Blake Griffin (’09) and Maya Moore of Connecticut (’09 and ‘11). Creighton’s Doug McDermott won the 2014 Wooden Award presented by Wendy’s.