NAISMITH BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES THE MID-SEASON TOP 10 CANDIDATES FOR THE 2026 POINT GUARD OF THE YEAR AWARDS

– Fan Voting Begins Friday, February 6 –

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. — The Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame introduced the Mid-Season High 10 candidates for the 2026 Bob Cousy Award and, in partnership with the Girls’s Basketball Coaches Affiliation (WBCA), the 2026 Nancy Lieberman Award.

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

Followers are inspired to take part in Fan Voting in each of the remaining rounds beginning on Friday, February 6, on hoophallawards.com. The Fan Vote will rely as one committee vote through the finalist choice course of.

In mid-March, the Mid-Season High 10 checklist will likely be narrowed to simply 5, and in late March, 5 finalists will likely be introduced to Cousy, Lieberman, and the Corridor of Fame’s choice committees, the place winners will likely be chosen. The Choice Committees for the Bob Cousy and Nancy Lieberman Awards are composed of prime males’s and girls’s school basketball personnel, together with media members, head coaches, sports activities info administrators, and Corridor of Famers. 

The winners of the 2026 Cousy and Lieberman Awards will likely be introduced on a to-be-determined date, together with the 4 different members of the Males’s and Girls’s Beginning 5. Extra awards being introduced embody the Jerry West and Ann Meyers Drysdale Awards (Taking pictures Guard), Julius Erving and Cheryl Miller Awards (Small Ahead), Karl Malone and Katrina McClain Awards (Energy Ahead), and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lisa Leslie Awards (Heart). 

Earlier winners of the Bob Cousy Award embody Braden Smith, Purdue (2025), Tristen Newton, UConn (2024), Markquis Nowell, Kansas State (2023), Ja Morant, Murray State (2019), Jalen Brunson, Villanova (2018), Trey Burke, Michigan (2013), and Kemba Walker, Connecticut (2011).

Earlier winners of the Nancy Lieberman Award embody Caitlin Clark, Iowa (2022-24), Paige Bueckers, UConn (2021 and ‘25), Sabrina Ionescu, Oregon (2018-20), Skylar Diggins, Notre Dame (2012-13), Diana Taurasi, UConn (2003-04), and Sue Chicken, UConn (2000-02).

For extra info on the 2026 Bob Cousy and Nancy Lieberman Awards and the newest updates, go to hoophallawards.com and comply with @hoophallu, #CousyAward, and #LiebermanAward on X and Instagram.

In regards to the WBCA: 

Based in 1981, the Girls’s Basketball Coaches Affiliation is the skilled affiliation for coaches of ladies’s and women’ basketball in any respect ranges of competitors. The WBCA affords academic assets that coaches want to assist make themselves higher leaders, lecturers and mentors to their gamers; supplies alternatives for coaches to attach with friends within the occupation; 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 annually 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 residence to greater than 475 inductees and over 40,000 sq. ft of basketball historical past. Practically 200,000 individuals go to the Corridor of Fame museum annually to study concerning the recreation, expertise the interactive reveals, 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 Basketball Corridor of Fame group, its museum, and occasions, go to hoophall.com and comply with @hoophallU.