John R. Wooden Award
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40 free John R. Wooden Award trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The John R. Wooden Award has named the best player in college basketball every spring since 1977, and its list of winners reads like a tour of the sport's modern history. Future NBA and WNBA most valuable players, one-season freshman sensations and four-year seniors have all carried the same bronze figures home. This quiz covers the award from every side: the men's winners and the women's winners, the repeat champions, the firsts, the trophy itself, how candidates are chosen, and the Legends of Coaching honor that sits beside it. A handful of questions look at John Wooden himself, the man whose standards the award was built around. It is written for college basketball fans, March Madness regulars and anyone who has scanned the list of winners and wondered how many they could name from a single clue.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Wooden Award was created in the 1970s to be college basketball's answer to which football honor?
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Trophy was the model: the founding club wanted one prize the whole country would accept as naming the best player in college basketball.
Q 02Which Indiana State forward won the 1979 Wooden Award before starring for the Boston Celtics?
Larry Bird
Larry Bird won it after leading Indiana State through an unbeaten regular season, a run that ended in the NCAA final against Michigan State.
Q 03What does each of the five bronze figures on the Wooden Award trophy represent?
A basketball skill
A basketball skill each: rebounding, passing, shooting, dribbling and defense, the five John Wooden believed a complete player must show.
Q 04Which Texas forward became the first freshman to win the Wooden Award, doing so in 2007?
Kevin Durant
Kevin Durant swept every major player-of-the-year honor after his single season at Texas, something no freshman had managed before.
Q 05Which Iowa guard won back-to-back Wooden Awards while becoming Division I's all-time leading scorer?
Caitlin Clark
Caitlin Clark took the women's award as a junior and again as a senior, and carried Iowa to the national title game in both seasons.
Q 06John Wooden, coach of ten NCAA championship teams in twelve years, was known by which nickname?
Wizard of Westwood
Wizard of Westwood stuck to him through 27 seasons in that corner of California, though Wooden personally disdained the name.
Q 07Which US president presented John Wooden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
George W. Bush
George W. Bush presented it after a three-year campaign by Andre McCarter, who played on Wooden's final title team in 1975.
Q 08John Wooden was the first person enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in which two roles?
Player and coach
Player and coach: Wooden went in first in 1960 for his playing career, then again in 1973 for the dynasty he built from the bench.
Q 09Besides excelling on court, Wooden Award candidates must stay above a set minimum in which measure?
Grade point average
Grade point average matters here: a candidate needs a cumulative 2.0 and must be a full-time student making progress toward a degree.
Q 10Which North Carolina guard won the 1984 Wooden Award, then went third overall in that year's NBA draft?
Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan left North Carolina a year early after sweeping the 1984 player-of-the-year honors, then went back to finish his degree in 1986.
Q 11Which Duke freshman won the 2019 Wooden Award, then went first overall to the New Orleans Pelicans?
Zion Williamson
Zion Williamson won it weeks after his shoe split apart against North Carolina, a slip that wiped $1.1 billion off Nike's market value the next day.
Q 12Which Wake Forest center, a competitive swimmer as a boy in the Virgin Islands, won the 1997 Wooden Award?
Tim Duncan
Tim Duncan stayed in college all four years, partly to keep a promise to his dying mother that he would graduate.
Q 13Which Navy center won the 1987 Wooden Award, then served on active duty before his NBA debut in 1989?
David Robinson
Q 21Which Tennessee forward, the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament game, won two Wooden Awards?
Candace Parker
Candace Parker won in 2007 and 2008, and in each of those seasons she carried Tennessee to the national championship.
Q 22Which UConn forward won the 2015 and 2016 Wooden Awards during a run of four straight national titles?
Breanna Stewart
Breanna Stewart was also named the Final Four's most outstanding player in all four of those title runs, a record.
Q 23Which UConn forward won Wooden Awards in 2009 and 2011 as the Huskies built a then-record 90-game winning streak?
Maya Moore
Maya Moore first won it as a sophomore, after a national championship season in which her team never lost a game.
David Robinson, later nicknamed the Admiral, had already outgrown the Naval Academy's own height limit by the time his first classes began.
Q 14Which Kentucky freshman won the 2012 Wooden Award months before going first in the NBA draft?
Anthony Davis
Anthony Davis also led Kentucky to the national championship that spring and was named the tournament's most outstanding player.
Q 15Which Duke freshman from Maine won the 2025 Wooden Award before going first in the NBA draft?
Cooper Flagg
Cooper Flagg was 18 when he won it, and that summer the Dallas Mavericks made him the first pick of the draft.
Q 16Which 7-foot-4 Virginia center won the Wooden Award in both 1982 and 1983?
Ralph Sampson
Ralph Sampson was the award's first repeat winner, and he then went first overall in the 1983 NBA draft.
Q 17Which BYU guard won the 1981 Wooden Award while also playing pro baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays?
Danny Ainge
Danny Ainge reached the major leagues as a Blue Jays infielder in 1979 while still in college, then chose basketball and joined the Celtics.
Q 18Which Duke forward won the 1992 Wooden Award and was the only collegian on the Olympic Dream Team?
Christian Laettner
Christian Laettner swept the major player-of-the-year honors as a senior, the same spring his last-second shot beat Kentucky in the NCAA tournament.
Q 19Which Oklahoma sophomore won the 2009 Wooden Award three days after announcing he would turn pro?
Blake Griffin
Blake Griffin was the first Oklahoma player to win it, and that June he was the first name called in the NBA draft.
Q 20Which Canadian center, who grew up on hockey and baseball, won Wooden Awards in 2023 and 2024?
Zach Edey
Zach Edey was the first man to repeat in four decades, and his final college game was the national championship final.
Q 24Which Baylor center won the 2012 and 2013 Wooden Awards, the first during an unbeaten title season?
Brittney Griner
Brittney Griner's 2012 Baylor team finished with 40 wins, the most any college team had recorded in one season.
Q 25Which Oregon guard, holder of Division I's career triple-double record, won two straight Wooden Awards?
Sabrina Ionescu
Sabrina Ionescu won in 2019 and 2020, and along the way she took the Oregon women to the first Final Four in their history.
Q 26Which UConn guard became the first freshman to win the women's Wooden Award, in 2021?
Paige Bueckers
Paige Bueckers swept every national award she was eligible for that season, yet had to wait until 2025 for her first championship.
Q 27Which South Carolina star won the 2018 Wooden Award a year after the Gamecocks' first national title?
A'ja Wilson
A'ja Wilson swept all six national player-of-the-year honors that season and left as South Carolina's all-time leading scorer.
Q 28Which USC guard won the 2025 women's Wooden Award a year after setting Division I's freshman scoring record?
JuJu Watkins
JuJu Watkins won as a sophomore playing in her own hometown, where she had been the country's top-ranked high school recruit.
Q 29Which Duke guard was the first winner when the Wooden Award was opened to women in 2004?
Alana Beard
Alana Beard took the first women's trophy as a senior, then went second overall in that spring's WNBA draft.
Q 30Which LSU guard became the first two-time women's Wooden Award winner, in 2005 and 2006?
Seimone Augustus
Seimone Augustus led LSU to three straight Final Fours, then went first overall in the 2006 WNBA draft.