IOWA CITY, Iowa — University of Iowa men’s basketball All-American Luka Garza was named to the Naismith Award Midseason Watch List on Thursday. The Naismith Trophy is presented annually to the most outstanding player who achieves tremendous on-court success.
Garza is also a semifinalist for a handful of other prestigious awards: Wooden Award; Lute Olson National Player of the Year Award; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award; and Senior CLASS.
Garza (6-foot-11, 265 pounds) has been the most dominant player in college basketball in 2020-21. Garza leads the country in points per game (25.3), player efficiency rating (39.3), 30-point games (6), and field goals made (188). He ranks eighth nationally in double-doubles (9) and free throws made (102).
Garza reached 2,000 points in 113 games, faster than any other Big Ten player over the last 25 years. He is the only men’s basketball player in Big Ten history to accumulate 2,000 points, 800 rebounds, 125 blocked shots, and 100 3-pointers and he is the only player from a major conference with those numbers dating back to the 1992-93 season. Garza is the only Hawkeye in school history to amass four 400-point seasons and is one of 11 Hawkeyes with two 500-point seasons.
The native of Washington, D.C., is all-time leading scorer in Big Ten regular season games and is 52 points from surpassing Roy Marble as Iowa’s all-time leading scorer.
Last season, Garza was recognized as the National Player of the Year by six national media outlets, the Pete Newell Big Man and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year, Big Ten Player of the Year, and District VI Player of the Year.
Garza and the Hawkeyes (14-6, 8-5) return to the court on Saturday at Michigan State (10-7, 4-7). Tipoff is set for 1:37 p.m. (CT) at the Breslin Center at East Lansing, Michigan.