University of North Carolina Athletics
Forte Selected To John Wooden All-American Team
March 28, 2001 | Men's Basketball
March 28, 2001
LOS ANGELES--The 10-player John R. Wooden All-American team was announced today (see below), with the top vote-getters invited to Los Angeles for the April 6 announcement of the 2001 John R. Wooden Award winner as the college basketball player of the year. The presentation of the Wooden Award Trophy to the Player of the Year will be made as part of a live one-hour special show, broadcast on Fox Sports Net at 4 p.m. that day.
Heading the list of players are returning Wooden All-Americans Shane Battier of Duke and Troy Murphy of Notre Dame. Two schools posted two players to the team, Duke with Jason Williams and Battier, and Stanford with Casey Jacobsen and Jarron Collins. The Conference breakdown of Wooden All-Americans is as follows: ACC-3, Big 10-2, Pac-10-2, Big East-1, SEC-1, West Coast-1. Three Wooden All-Americans are playing in the Final Four this weekend: Battier, Jason Williams and Michigan State's Charlie Bell. Nine Wooden All-Americans played in the Sweet 16 and eight played on teams that advanced to Regional Final games. Kenyon Martin of Cincinnati was the 2000 Wooden Award winner, joining such players as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and David Robinson.
Ballotting by 1,000 members of the media and college basketball experts was conducted over the past three weeks. Voters selected 10 players from the 20 athletes listed on the ballot, and ranked them from 1 to 10. Voters were asked to take into account performance during the regular season and postseason through games last Sunday, as well as a player's character and academic performance. All players on the ballot were certified by their schools as maintaining a 2.0 GPA at their current school.
The black tie Silver Anniversary 25th John R. Wooden Award Presentation Gala will be held at 6:00 p.m. on April 6 at the Biltmore Hotel following the nationally-televised announcement of the Wooden Award winner. In addition to honoring the Wooden All-America team, the third annual "Legends of Coaching" Award will be presented to Arizona's Lute Olson, whose team plays Michigan State in the Final Four Saturday. Tickets are $150 and may be obtained by calling The Los Angeles Athletic Club at (213) 630-5255, the event always sells out. For up to date information on all of the Wooden Award candidates, please go to www.woodenaward.com.
2001 John R. Wooden Award All-American Team
(Players listed alphabetically)
Shane Battier, 6-8, Sr., F, Duke
Charlie Bell, 6-3, Sr., G, Michigan St.
Casey Calvary, 6-8, Sr., F, Gonzaga
Jarron Collins, 6-11, Sr., F, Stanford
Joseph Forte, 6-4, So., G, North Carolina
Casey Jacobsen, 6-6, So., G/F, Stanford
Troy Murphy, 6-11, Jr., F, Notre Dame
Tayshaun Prince, 6-9, Jr., G/F, Kentucky
Frank Williams, 6-3, So., G, Illinois
Jason Williams, 6-2, So., G, Duke
