Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award
Awarded for	the nation's top male center in NCAA basketball
Country	United States
Presented by	Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
History
First award	2015
Most recent	Zuby Ejiofor, St. John's
Website	Official website

The Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award is an annual basketball award given by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to the top men's collegiate center. Following the success of the Bob Cousy Award which had been awarded since 2004, the award was one of four new awards (along with the Jerry West Award, Julius Erving Award and Karl Malone Award) created as part of the inaugural College Basketball Awards show in 2015.^[1] It is named after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee who played the position. The inaugural winner was Frank Kaminsky of Wisconsin.^[2]

Awarded forthe nation's top male center in NCAA basketball

CountryUnited States

First award2015

Quick facts Awarded for, Country ...

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Season	Player	School	Class	Reference
2014–15	Frank Kaminsky*	Wisconsin	Senior	^[2]
2015–16	Jakob Pöltl	Utah	Sophomore	^[3]
2016–17	Przemek Karnowski	Gonzaga	Senior	^[4]
2017–18	Ángel Delgado	Seton Hall	Senior	^[5]
2018–19	Ethan Happ	Wisconsin	Senior	^[6]
2019–20	Luka Garza	Iowa	Junior	^[7]
2020–21	Luka Garza* (2)	Iowa	Senior	^[8]
2021–22	Oscar Tshiebwe*	Kentucky	Junior	^[9]
2022–23	Zach Edey*	Purdue	Junior	^[10]
2023–24	Zach Edey* (2)	Purdue	Senior	^[11]
2024–25	Ryan Kalkbrenner	Creighton	Senior	^[12]
2025–26	Zuby Ejiofor	St. John's	Senior	^[13]

Key

*	Awarded a national player of the year award: Sporting News; Oscar Robertson Trophy; Associated Press; NABC; Naismith; Wooden
Player (X)	Denotes the number of times the player has been awarded the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at that point