NAISMITH BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES PRESEASON WATCH LIST FOR THE 2026 MEN’S AND WOMEN’S POINT GUARD OF THE YEAR AWARDS

– Fan Voting Begins Friday, October 31 –

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. — The Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame introduced the 20 watch-list candidates for the 2026 Bob Cousy Award and, in partnership with the Ladies’s Basketball Coaches Affiliation (WBCA), the 20 watch-list candidates for the 2026 Nancy Lieberman Award.

The annual Bob Cousy Award, named after the Class of 1971 Corridor of Famer and former Boston Celtic and Holy Cross guard, celebrates its twenty third 12 months by highlighting the highest level guard in Division I males’s school basketball. 

Now in its twenty seventh 12 months, the Nancy Lieberman Award acknowledges the highest level guard in ladies’s NCAA Division I school basketball. To be thought-about for this prestigious award, candidates should exhibit the ground management, playmaking, and ball-handling abilities of Class of 1996 Corridor-of-Famer Nancy Lieberman. 

*Gamers can play their manner onto and off the checklist at any level within the 2025-26 season.

Followers are inspired to take part in Fan Voting in every of the three rounds beginning on Friday, October 31. In late January, the watch checklist of 20 gamers for the 2026 Bob Cousy and Nancy Lieberman Awards will likely be narrowed to 10, after which in late February, to only 5. In March, the 5 finalists will likely be offered to Cousy, Lieberman, and the Corridor of Fame’s choice committees, the place winners will likely be chosen. The Choice Committees for the Bob Cousy and Nancy Lieberman Awards are composed of high males’s and girls’s school basketball personnel, together with media members, head coaches, sports activities data administrators, and Corridor of Famers. 

The winners of the 2026 Cousy and Lieberman Awards will likely be offered on a to-be-determined date, together with the 4 different members of the Males’s and Ladies’s Beginning 5. Further awards being offered embody the Jerry West and Ann Meyers Drysdale Awards (Capturing Guard), Julius Erving and Cheryl Miller Awards (Small Ahead), Karl Malone and Katrina McClain Awards (Energy Ahead), and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lisa Leslie Awards (Heart). 

Earlier winners of the Bob Cousy Award embody Braden Smith, Purdue (2025), Tristen Newton, Connecticut (2024), Markquis Nowell, Kansas State (2023), Ayo Dosunmu, Illinois (2021), Ja Morant, Murray State (2019), Jalen Brunson, Villanova (2018), Trey Burke, Michigan (2013), Kendall Marshall, North Carolina (2012), Kemba Walker, Connecticut (2011), and Jameer Nelson, St. Joseph’s (2004). 

Earlier winners of the Nancy Lieberman Award embody Caitlin Clark, Iowa (2022-24), Paige Bueckers, UConn (2021 and ‘25), Sabrina Ionescu, Oregon (2018-20), Skylar Diggins, Notre Dame (2012-13), Diana Taurasi, Connecticut (2003-04), and Sue Chicken, Connecticut (2000-02).

For extra data on the 2026 Bob Cousy and Nancy Lieberman Awards and the most recent updates, go to hoophallawards.com and comply with @hoophallu, #CousyAward, and #LiebermanAward on X and Instagram.

In regards to the WBCA: 

Based in 1981, the Ladies’s Basketball Coaches Affiliation is the skilled affiliation for coaches of ladies’s and women’ basketball in any respect ranges of competitors. The WBCA presents instructional assets that coaches want to assist make themselves higher leaders, academics and mentors to their gamers; gives alternatives for coaches to attach with friends within the career; serves because the unifying voice of a various group of coaches to these organizations that management the sport; and celebrates these coaches, gamers and different people who excel every year and contribute to the development of the game. For extra data, go to us on-line: WBCA.org, comply with @wbca1981,or name 1-770-279-8027.

In regards to the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame: 

Positioned in Springfield, Massachusetts, town the place basketball was born, the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame is an unbiased nonprofit 501(c)(3) group devoted to selling, preserving, and celebrating the sport of basketball at each stage—women and men, newbie {and professional} gamers, coaches, and contributors—each domestically and internationally. The Corridor of Fame museum is dwelling to greater than 475 inductees and over 40,000 sq. toes of basketball historical past. Practically 200,000 folks go to the Corridor of Fame museum every year to study concerning the sport, expertise the interactive reveals, and take a look at their abilities on the Jerry Colangelo “Court docket of Desires.” Finest recognized for its annual marquee Enshrinement Ceremony honoring the sport’s elite, the Corridor of Fame additionally operates over 150 highschool and collegiate competitions yearly all through the nation and overseas. For extra data on the Basketball Corridor of Fame group, its museum, and occasions, go to hoophall.com and comply with @hoophallu.