One of 50 Top College Basketball Players On The List
LOS ANGELES – University of Dayton guard Jalen Crutcher has been named to the John R. Wooden Award® presented by Wendy’s® Preseason Top 50 Watch List today. Chosen by a preseason poll of national college basketball experts, the list is comprised of the early front-runners for the most prestigious honors in college basketball, the Wooden Award All-American Team™ and Most Outstanding Player Award.
The award is presented by the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Created in 1976, the John R. Wooden Award Program hosts the most prestigious honors in college basketball recognizing The Wooden Award Most Outstanding Player for men and women, The Wooden Award All American Teams for men and women and the annual selection of the Wooden Award Legend of Coaching recipient.
Honorees have proven to their university that they meet or exceed the qualifications of the John R. Wooden Award as set forth by Coach Wooden and the Wooden Award Steering Committee, including making progress towards graduation and maintaining at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA. Previous winners include Larry Bird (’79), Michael Jordan (’84), Tim Duncan (’97), Kevin Durant (’07), Candace Parker (’07; ’08), Maya Moore (’09; ’11), Chiney Ogwumike (’14), Breanna Stewart (’15 and ’16) and last year’s recipients, Sabrina Ionescu of Oregon and Obi Toppin of Dayton.
A preseason All-American (Second Team according to Stadium), Crutcher is also on the watch list for the Atlanta Tip-Off Club’s Naismith Trophy, the NABC Player of the Year Award and Basketball Hall of Fame’s Bob Cousy Award. He is ranked the 12th-best college player according to ESPN, 16th in CBSSports.com’s list of the top 100 (and 1) college basketball players and the nation’s sixth-best guard by The Athletic.
Crutcher quarterbacked Dayton to a 29-2 overall record, a No. 3 national ranking in the final poll and a perfect 18-0 mark in winning the Atlantic 10 Conference Regular Season Championship in 2019-20. Last year, UD led Division I in field goal percentage (.525, 905-1725), was second in scoring margin (+15.5) and third in assists per game (17.6).
Entering his fourth year as a starter, Crutcher was First Team All-Atlantic 10 last year. Sports Illustrated ranked him 34th in its listing of the Top 50 players of the 2019-20 college basketball season. He was also First Team All-District 4 as voted on by the members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. During the year, he became the first UD player to be named a back-to-back conference player of the week.
Crutcher led Dayton in minutes (33.7), assists (4.9) three-pointers (2.4 per game), 3-pt. FG% (.468, 147-314) and FT% (.869, 86-99), and was second in scoring (15.1). In Atlantic 10 Conference games, he was the only player in the top seven of the guard-oriented stat categories — scoring (7th), assists (7th), 3-pt. FG’s (5th), 3-pt % (4th), FT% (3rd) and A/T ratio (1st).
He is currently 36th in career scoring at UD with 1,170 points, and ninth with 470 career assists. Crutcher is third at Dayton in career assists per game (5.0) and second in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.18). He is on pace to finish second in career assists for the Flyers.
The Memphis native is a two-time Flyer White Allen MVP, sharing the honor last season with Toppin, the eventual consensus national player of the year.
COURTESY DAYTON MEDIA RELATIONS
