NAISMITH BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES THE PRESEASON WATCH LIST FOR THE 2026 MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SMALL FORWARD OF THE YEAR AWARDS

– Fan Voting Begins Friday, October 31 –

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. — The Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame introduced the 20 watch-list candidates for the 2026 Julius Erving Award and, in partnership with the Ladies’s Basketball Coaches Affiliation (WBCA), the 20 watch-list candidates for the 2026 Cheryl Miller Award. 

The annual Julius Erving Award, named after the Class of 1993 Corridor of Famer and 17-year skilled basketball participant, celebrates its twelfth yr by recognizing the highest small forwards in Division I males’s faculty basketball.

The Cheryl Miller Award, in its ninth yr, honors the highest small forwards in girls’s Division I girls’s faculty basketball. It’s named after the three-time Naismith Participant of the 12 months and Class of 1995 Corridor of Famer.

*Gamers can play their means onto and off the listing at any level within the 2025-26 season.

Followers can assist their favourite participant by collaborating in Fan Voting beginning Friday, October 31. In late January, the watch listing of 20 gamers for the 2026 Julius Erving and Cheryl Miller Awards will likely be narrowed to 10, after which in late February, to simply 5. In March, the 5 finalists will likely be introduced to Erving, Miller, and the Corridor of Fame’s choice committees, the place winners will likely be chosen. The Choice Committees for the Julius Erving and Cheryl Miller Awards are composed of prime males’s and girls’s faculty basketball personnel, together with media members, head coaches, sports activities info administrators, and Corridor of Famers.

The winner of the 2026 Erving and Miller Awards will likely be introduced on a to-be-determined date, together with the opposite 4 members of the Males’s and Ladies’s Beginning 5. Extra awards being introduced embrace the Bob Cousy and Nancy Lieberman Awards (Level Guard), Jerry West and Ann Meyers Drysdale Awards (Capturing Guard), Karl Malone and Katrina McClain Awards (Energy Ahead), and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lisa Leslie Awards (Middle).

Earlier winners of the Julius Erving Award are Cooper Flagg, Duke (2025), Dalton Knecht, Tennessee (2024), Jalen Wilson, Kansas (2023), Wendell Moore Jr., Duke (2022), Corey Kispert, Gonzaga (2021), Saddiq Bey, Villanova (2020), Rui Hachimura, Gonzaga (2019), Mikal Bridges, Villanova (2018), Josh Hart, Villanova (2017), Denzel Valentine, Michigan State (2016), and Stanley Johnson, Arizona (2015). 

Earlier winners of the Cheryl Miller Award are Madison Booker, Texas (2024-25), Ashley Joens, Iowa State (2021-23), Satou Sabally, Oregon (2020), Bridget Carleton, Iowa State (2019), and Gabby Williams, Connecticut (2018).

For extra info on the 2026 Julius Erving and Cheryl Miller Awards and the most recent updates, go to hoophallawards.com and comply with @hoophallu, #ErvingAward, and #MillerAward on X and Instagram. 

In regards to the WBCA: 

Based in 1981, the Ladies’s Basketball Coaches Affiliation is the skilled affiliation for coaches of ladies’s and ladies’ basketball in any respect ranges of competitors. The WBCA gives academic assets that coaches want to assist make themselves higher leaders, lecturers, and mentors to their gamers; offers alternatives for coaches to attach with friends within the career; serves because the unifying voice of a various neighborhood of coaches to these organizations that management the sport; and celebrates these coaches, gamers, and different people who excel every year and contribute to the development of the game. For extra info, go to us on-line: WBCA.org, comply with @wbca1981 or name 1-770-279-8027.

In regards to the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame

Situated in Springfield, Massachusetts, the town the place basketball was born, the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame is an unbiased nonprofit 501(c)(3) group devoted to selling, preserving, and celebrating the sport of basketball at each degree – women and men, beginner {and professional} gamers, coaches, and contributors, each domestically and internationally. The Corridor of Fame museum is house to greater than 475 inductees and over 40,000 sq. ft of basketball historical past. Almost 200,000 individuals go to the Corridor of Fame museum every year to study concerning the recreation, expertise the interactive displays and take a look at their expertise on the Jerry Colangelo “Courtroom of Goals.” Greatest identified for its annual marquee Enshrinement Ceremony honoring the sport’s elite, the Corridor of Fame additionally operates over 150 highschool and collegiate competitions yearly all through the nation and overseas. For extra info on the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame group, its museum, and occasions, go to hoophall.com and comply with @hoophallu.