University of Houston senior point guard Jamal Shead added another postseason honor to his trophy case when he was named to the 2024 John R. Wooden Award presented by Principal All-American Team as announced by the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
This was the latest All-America honor for Shead for the 2023-24 season. A unanimous consensus First-Team honoree, Shead received similar honors from Associated Press, NABC, USBWA, The Sporting News, Field of 68 and College Hoops Today earlier this season.
He recently was recognized as the National Defensive Player of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, Field of 68 and Andy Katz and is a finalist for the Naismith Player of the Year and Naismith Defensive Player of the Year.
In 2023-24, Shead helped lead the Cougars to a 32-5 overall record and the Big 12 regular-season championship by two games in the Cougars' first year in the league.
"I want to thank my coaches and my teammates for this honor. We play hard and get after our opponents. Our system helped me in so many ways, and, once you learn our system, you can really thrive in it," Shead said.
ABOUT JAMAL SHEAD
Shead has been a leader for the Cougars throughout his career and never more so than during the 2023-24 season. He owns a 120-18 record in four seasons during his Houston career and ranked second in school history with his victory total.
The Cougars held 23 opponents to 60 or fewer points while the Manor, Texas, native recorded 22 games with multiple steals with 12 games with 3+ thefts, including a season-high six steals against rv/– Texas in a home win inside Fertitta Center on Feb. 17.
In the Houston records book, Shead ranked third in Houston history with 226 steals and finished sixth in school single-season history with 80 steals.
He was named the Player of the Year by the league's head coaches and the Associated Press and also was named the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, becoming the first player in Big 12 history to accomplish that feat in the same season.
It also was the second straight season in his second different league in which Shead was named Conference Defensive Player of the Year. He joined forward and Houston great Bo Outlaw as the only Cougars to accomplish that feat.
Shead stood second among the Cougars with 12.9 points per game. Shead also led Houston and ranked among the Big 12 Top-Five leaders in assists per game (6.3, 3rd), steals per game (2.2, 3rd) and assist-turnover ratio (3.11, 2nd) and was the only student-athlete to rank among the nation's Top-20 leaders in all three categories.
He was named the Big 12 Player of the Week twice during the regular season and was recognized as the Naismith Trophy Player of the Week for Feb. 26 and the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week for Jan. 23.
Shead scored double-digit points in 27 games, including 13 of the last 15 . He also dished out 10+ assists in six games with a career-high 29-point, 10-assist performance at #21/19 BYU on Jan. 23. He was the only Cougar to record points-rebounds AND points-assists double-doubles in 2023-24.
Shead was joined on the 10-man All-America team by guard RJ Davis (North Carolina), center Hunter Dickinson (Kansas), center Zach Edey (Purdue), center Kyle Filipowski (Duke), guard Dalton Knecht (Tennessee), guard Tyler Kolek (Marquette), forward Jaedon LeDee (San Diego State), guard Caleb Love (North Carolina) and guard Tristen Newton (UConn).
Davis, Edey, Knecht and Newton joined Shead as finalists for the 2023-24 Wooden Award presented by Principal Player of the Year. All five finalists were invited to Los Angeles for the 48th annual presentation of the John R. Wooden Award presented by Principal Gala.
The 48th annual John R. Wooden Award presented by Principal Player of the Year will be announced April 9 during SportsCenter on ESPN.
The John R. Wooden Award presented by Principal Gala will honor the Men's and Women's Wooden Award winners and will include the presentation of the Wooden Award All American Teams and the Legends of Coaching Award, this year given to John Calipari. The Gala will take place at the Los Angeles Athletic Club on Friday, April 12th.
