{"id":708185,"date":"2026-04-11T13:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T13:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/708185\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T13:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T13:18:24","slug":"uconn-womens-basketball-star-sarah-strong-wins-wooden-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/708185\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn women’s basketball star Sarah Strong wins Wooden Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn women\u2019s basketball<\/a> star Sarah Strong<\/a> completed her collection of national player of the year honors Friday when she was named the winner of the 2026 Wooden Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Strong previously won the Naismith Trophy<\/a>, the Wade Trophy<\/a> from the Women\u2019s Basketball Coaches Association, the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award<\/a> from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and the AP Player of the Year<\/a>. She is just the third Husky named consensus national player of the year since the Wooden Award was established for women in 2004, joining a pair of legends in Maya Moore<\/a> (2009, \u201911) and Breanna Stewart<\/a> (2015, \u201916).<\/p>\n

Strong is also just the third sophomore to ever win the Wooden, following USC\u2019s JuJu Watkins (2025) and Moore (2009). She earned the award over four other finalists: UConn teammate Azzi Fudd<\/a>, UCLA center Lauren Betts, Vanderbilt guard Mikayla Blakes and Texas forward Madison Booker.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great honor, and just thank you to everyone in my life \u2014 my mom, my coaches, my teammates,\u201d Strong told ESPN during the ceremony in Los Angeles after accepting the award. \u201cThis is all for all of them. This wouldn\u2019t be possible without them.\u201d<\/p>\n

How UConn women\u2019s basketball team broke down Sarah Strong\u2019s wall: \u2018The shyness is gone\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Two other Huskies have won the Wooden Award, Tina Charles<\/a> in 2010 and Paige Bueckers<\/a> in 2021. Bueckers became the first freshman to earn the honor and won every player of the year award she qualified for in 2020-21, but freshmen were not eligible to win the Wade Trophy at the time.<\/p>\n

Though UConn\u2019s 2025-26 season ended on a heartbreaking loss in the Final Four<\/a>, Strong\u2019s sophomore campaign was one for the history books. The star forward averaged 18.4 points, 7.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 3.4 steals and 1.6 blocks, leading UConn in every major statistic except assists to a 38-1 record. Strong was also remarkably efficient, shooting 58.2% from the field, 40.4% from 3-point range and 83.3% at the free throw line. She led the country in defensive rating, defensive win shares, and defensive box plus\/minus, and she finished the season tied for fourth nationally in steals.<\/p>\n

Strong swept the Big East Player and Defensive Player of the Year awards, and she won the Katrina McClain Award given by the Basketball Hall of Fame to the best power forward in the nation. She was a finalist for Naismith Defensive Player of the Year and earned consensus first-team All-America honors.<\/p>\n

How will UConn women\u2019s basketball roster look next season? Key returners, potential portal additions<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UConn women\u2019s basketball star Sarah Strong completed her collection of national player of the year honors Friday when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,5441,217,2340,925,2680,2679,68003,12009,231,772,1544,6113,6115,66,923,6107,6112,815],"class_list":{"0":"post-708185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-breanna-stewart","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-connecticut","12":"tag-ct-news","13":"tag-hartford-courant","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-max-image-preview","16":"tag-maya-moore","17":"tag-ncaa","18":"tag-ncaa-basketball","19":"tag-ncaab","20":"tag-paige-bueckers","21":"tag-sarah-strong","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-uconn-huskies","24":"tag-uconn-womens-basketball","25":"tag-womens-basketball","26":"tag-wooden-award"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116386275173351786","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}