JuJu Watkins

University of Southern California’s sophomore Juju Watkins has been named the 2025 John R. Wooden Award® winner, presented by Principal, as released by Wooden Award Chairman Sam Laganà and The Los Angeles Athletic Club. The announcement was made today during ESPN’s SportsCenter GameDay broadcast. The live “John R. Wooden Awards Show presented by Principal” will stream on ESPN+ on Friday, April 11 at 8 p.m. EDT / 5 p.m. PDT. The 6-foot-2 guard was the No.1 recruit in the 2023 recruiting class and has since captivated the nation during her freshman (27.1 PPG) and sophomore (24.6 PPG) years.

Watkins has been selected as the 2025 John R. Wooden Award® Winner over UConn’s Paige Bueckers, who won the Award as a freshman, by a margin of 46 votes. Voting took place from March 11–24, 2025, by a national panel of voters composed of sportswriters and sportscasters from across the country, along with former Wooden Award® winners. As insisted upon by Coach Wooden at the award’s creation in 1976, all players considered for the ballot were certified by their universities as meeting or exceeding the academic criteria of the John R. Wooden Award®. Deloitte tabulated all ballots and certified the results, ensuring strict adherence to established voting procedures. Juju Watkins will join Coach Mark Few, the Wooden Award® Legend of Coaching recipient, and the Wooden Award® honoree for men’s basketball, to be announced later today, as the celebrated winners of the nation’s most prestigious collegiate basketball awards. They will be joined by their coaches and members of the Wooden Award All-America™ Top 5 Finalists at the Los Angeles Athletic Club for the “John R. Wooden Awards Show presented by Principal,” streaming on ESPN+ on Friday, April 11 at 8 p.m. EDT / 5 p.m. PDT.