{"id":79440,"date":"2026-04-05T18:16:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79440"},"modified":"2026-04-05T18:16:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:16:01","slug":"mens-college-basketball-awards-no-1-seeds-sweep-naismith-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79440","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s College Basketball Awards: No. 1 Seeds Sweep Naismith Honors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Men\u2019s College Basketball Awards: No. 1 Seeds Sweep Naismith Honors<\/h1>\n
Every top team but Michigan went home with some hardware.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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On Monday, UConn and Michigan will battle for the national championship, and another men\u2019s college basketball trip around the sun will be complete.<\/p>\n

Before the ball is tipped, however, three of the sport\u2019s most prestigious individual honors must be handed out. On Sunday, the\u00a0Atlanta Tipoff Club\u00a0presented the Naismith Men\u2019s College Player of the Year, the Naismith Men\u2019s College Coach of the Year, and the Naismith Men\u2019s College Defensive Player of the Year awards to their trio of winners. In 2025, these awards went to Duke forward Cooper Flagg, St. John\u2019s coach Rick Pitino and Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner, respectively.<\/p>\n

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2026 men\u2019s Naismith award winners<\/h2>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
AWARD<\/strong><\/th>\nWINNER<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Men\u2019s College Player of the Year<\/td>\nCameron Boozer, forward, Duke<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Men\u2019s College Coach of the Year<\/td>\nTommy Lloyd, Arizona<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Men\u2019s College Defensive Player of the Year<\/td>\nRueben Chinyelu, center, Florida<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Men\u2019s College Player of the Year: Cameron Boozer, forward, Duke<\/h3>\n

Boozer\u2019s award\u00a0is the 10th in the Blue Devils\u2019 storied history, He joins guard Johnny Dawkins (1986), forward Danny Ferry (1989), center Christian Laettner (1992), center Elton Brand (1999), forward Shane Battier (2001), guard Jay Williams (2002), guard J.J. Redick (2006), forward Zion Williamson (2019) and Flagg.<\/p>\n

The son of former Duke center Carlos Boozer more than lived up to the hype he garnered entering this season as one of the nation\u2019s top recruits. He averaged 22.5 points, an ACC-high 10.2 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game, and his advanced metrics were even better\u2014he led Division I in offensive win shares, defensive win shares, and total win shares. In fact, his 10.38 win shares were the second-most by any men\u2019s player in any season in the 2020s, trailing Purdue center Zach Edey\u2019s 10.47 in 2024.<\/p>\n

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The other finalists for the award were Arkansas guard Darius Acuff Jr., BYU forward AJ Dybantsa and Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s College Coach of the Year: Tommy Lloyd, Arizona<\/h3>\n

Lloyd is the first Wildcats coach to win the award, and just the fourth-ever Big 12 coach to win it. Kansas\u2019s Roy Williams won the award in 1997, the Jayhawks\u2019 Bill Self won in 2012 and Kansas State\u2019s Jerome Tang won in 2023.<\/p>\n

Arizona hired the Kelso, Wash., native away from his longtime post as a Gonzaga assistant before the 2022 season\u2014a move that paid immediate dividends as the Wildcats went 33\u20134 and reached the Sweet 16. Since then, Lloyd has gone 148\u201336 and Arizona has resumed its 1990s-era position among the nation\u2019s elite. The Wildcats\u2019 Final Four trip this year was their first since 2001; they lost 91\u201373 to Michigan Saturday (Lloyd, to the surprise of several present, still\u00a0showed up to accept his award\u00a0in person).<\/p>\n

Other finalists for this award included Fred Hoiberg of Nebraska, Dusty May of Michigan and Jon Scheyer of Duke.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s College Defensive Player of the Year: Rueben Chinyelu, center, Florida<\/h3>\n

Chinyelu, a native of Enugwu-Agidi, Nigeria, is the first Gator to win the Naismith Men\u2019s College Defensive Player of the Year award and the second SEC player after Auburn center Walker Kessler in 2022.<\/p>\n

Starting his career at Washington State in \u201924, Chinyelo transferred to Florida and started every game of the Gators\u2019 national championship season in \u201925. In \u201926, he further raised his game, averaging 11.2 rebounds per game to lead the SEC, grabbing nearly a quarter (24.2%) of boards available while on the floor.<\/p>\n

There were three other finalists for that award: Kansas forward Flory Bidunga, St. John\u2019s forward Zuby Ejiofor and Houston forward Joseph Tugler.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Men\u2019s College Basketball Awards: No. 1 Seeds Sweep Naismith Honors Every top team but Michigan went home with some hardware. On Monday, UConn and Michigan will battle for the national … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":79441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[640],"class_list":["post-79440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-college-basketball"],"yoast_head":"\nMen\u2019s College Basketball Awards: No. 1 Seeds Sweep Naismith Honors - iSport<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On Monday, UConn and Michigan will battle for the national championship, and another men\u2019s college basketball trip around the sun will\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79440\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Men\u2019s College Basketball Awards: No. 1 Seeds Sweep Naismith Honors - 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