IOWA CITY, Iowa — Luka Garza and Jordan Bohannon are co-winners of the Chris Street Award for the 2021 University of Iowa men’s basketball season. The duo are two of eight players who garnered recognition at the team’s award ceremony held Saturday morning at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The Chris Street Award is presented annually to a Hawkeye player, or players, who best exemplify the spirit, enthusiasm, and intensity of Chris Street. Street was an Iowa basketball player who died in an auto accident in 1993, midway through his junior year.
Garza and Bohannon become the third and fourth players to earn the program’s most distinguished honor multiple times since 1993.
Garza was the most dominant player in men’s college basketball, sweeping the major postseason awards (Wooden, Naismith, Associated Press, Oscar Robertson, NABC, Lute Olson, Sporting News) to become the program’s first consensus national player of the year. Earlier in the day, Garza was presented the 2021 Naismith Trophy by the Atlanta Tipoff Club. He also was the recipient of the Senior CLASS Award, Pete Newell Big Man of the Year Award, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award, Big Ten Player of the Year, and voted to the Big Ten All-Tournament Team.
Iowa’s first two-time unanimous consensus first-team All-American led the country in total points (747), player efficiency rating (35.84), 30-point games (8), field goals made (281), and 20-point games (22). The native of Washington, D.C., ranked second nationally in points per game (24.1), fifth in free throw attempts (199), 10th in free throw makes (141), and 11th in double-doubles (13). His 747 points extended the single-season school record he set last season (740).
In addition to ranking first in career scoring, Garza is tops at Iowa in 30-point games (13), conference scoring (1,399), field goals made (870), field goal attempts (1,594), and 40-point games (2); second in rebounds (931); fourth in double-doubles (34); fifth in blocked shots (154); sixth in free throw makes (446) and attempts (636); and 16th in 3-pointers made (120). He is the only men’s basketball player in Big Ten history to accumulate 2,250 points and 900 rebounds.
Garza also earned Iowa’s All-Time Scoring Leader Award and the team’s Best Rebounder Award. The two-time Big Ten Player of the Year broke Roy Marble’s 32-year old scoring record on Feb. 21, 2021. He finished his Hawkeye career with 2,306 points, which ranks seventh best in Big Ten history. Garza controlled a team-best 8.7 rebounds per contest, which ranked fifth best in the league. He grabbed 10 boards or more in 13 contests in 2021, including a season-high 17 rebounds at Minnesota on Christmas Night.
Bohannon averaged 10.6 points, 4.4 assists, and 3.1 rebounds directing and stretching Iowa’s potent offensive attack, which led the Big Ten and ranked fifth nationally. An honorable mention all-conference selection, Bohannon ranked first in the Big Ten in 3-point accuracy (.390), second in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.07) and 3-pointers made per game (2.58), and fifth in assists per game (4.4). His 80 3-pointers in 2021 are fourth most and his 135 assists are ninth most by a senior in program history.
Bohannon holds four Iowa career records: 3-pointers made (364), assists (639), free throw percentage (.887), and games played (143). His 364 triples are second most in Big Ten history. The native of Marion, Iowa, is one of only four Division I players since the 1992-93 season to amass more than 600 assists and 350 3-pointers. Bohannon has accumulated a school-record seven points-assists double-doubles and eight games of 10 or more assists. He is one of 30 Division I players over the last 25 years to make 75+ 3-pointers in four seasons.
Bohannon also earned Iowa’s All-Time Assists Leader Award and was co-winner of the team’s Top Playmaker Award with Connor McCaffery. Bohannon, who has won or shared the award four times, made three or more 3-pointers in 14 games in 2021, including equaling a career-high eight versus Nebraska. McCaffery ranked fourth in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.73) and 10th in the league in assists per game (3.6). He dished out 112 assists, 11th most by an Iowa junior. McCaffery was also the co-winner of the Academic Excellence Award with Michael Baer for the second consecutive season.