Evan Turner of Ohio State wins 34th John R. Wooden Award
 LOS ANGELES—Evan Turner of Ohio State is the 2010 John R. Wooden Award winner as the college basketball player of the year. The announcement was made at The Los Angeles Athletic Club this evening and streamed live on CBS College Sports Network. Blake Griffin, the 2009 Wooden Award winner who now plays for the Los Angeles Clippers, made the announcement and presented Turner with the Wooden Award trophy whose unique design was inspired by Coach Wooden’s idea of the “total basketball player.â€
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       Turner averaged 20.4 points and 9.4 rebounds in 2010 as his Buckeye team reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament and won the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles. A 6-7 junior from Chicago Ill., he was the Big Ten Player of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player in the Big Ten Tournament. He was the conference’s top scorer and rebounder and ranked No. 2 in assists (6.0, 6th in the nation) and steals (1.7).  Â
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       Balloting by more than 1,000 members of the media and college basketball experts was conducted through the weekend of the Elite Eight. Voters selected 10 players for the John R. Wooden Award All American team from the 27 student-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, as well as a player’s character and academic record. All players on the ballot were certified as maintaining a cumulative 2.0 GPA at their current school, including the most recent semester.
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           Turner had 3,715 points, followed by John Wall of Kentucky with 3,331 and Syracuse’s Wesley Johnson with 1,871. Turner joins a distinguished group of Wooden Award winners, including Michael Jordan (North Carolina), Ralph Sampson (Virginia), Tim Duncan (Wake Forest), Kevin Durant (Texas) and Larry Bird (Indiana State). Turner is the first Ohio State player to win the Award; Greg Oden was a finalist in 2007.
