LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Athletic Club announced Tuesday on espnW that senior Becca Hittner (Urbandale, Iowa) of the Drake University women's basketball team has been named to the John R. Wooden Award® presented by Wendy's® Women's Preseason Top 30 Watch List.
 
The national list is comprised of 30 student-athletes who are the early front-runners for college basketball's most prestigious honor. The Wooden list is chosen by a preseason poll of national women's college basketball media members. This is the second national watch list for Hittner, who last month was selected to the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award preseason watch list.
 
Last season, Hittner, who helped lead Drake to its third-straight NCAA Tournament, was a WBCA All-America nominee. She is the back-to-back Jackie Stiles Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, and has led the MVC in scoring each of the past two seasons, including a career-high 19.7 points per game in 2018-19. Her name was among the MVC leaders in several other statistical categories, including three-point percentage (40.4, 4th), field goal percentage (46.9, 7th), free throw percentage (82.1, 6th) and rebounding (5.2, 15th). Hittner recorded a league-best 15 20-point plus scoring games, a league-high four 30-point plus scoring games and scored in double digits in 32-of-34 games. She was named to the All-MVC First Team for the third-consecutive season. Hittner made 76 three-pointers, which tied for fifth most in a season in school history. 
 
Her 1,565 career points are accompanied by 98 steals, 188 three-pointers, 221 assists and 503 rebounds while shooting a program-leading 44.2 percent from three (leads all active NCAA players), 48.7 percent from the floor and 83.5 percent from the free throw line (3rd all-time at Drake). Her points total and career scoring average of 16.1 rank 17th and seventh, respectively, going into her final season. 
 
An excellent student, Hittner, who holds a 3.96 GPA in marketing, was selected to the 2019 Google Cloud (CoSIDA) Academic All-American Third Team, to the 2019 MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team and was named MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Week during the regular season.
 
The preseason list represents nine conferences: the Pac-12 leads all conferences with nine selections, followed by the SEC with six, the ACC and Big 12 with four apiece, the American and Big Ten with two each, and Conference USA, Ivy League, and Missouri Valley with one selection apiece.
 
The players on the list are considered strong candidates for the 2020 John R. Wooden Award Women's Player of the Year presented by Wendy's. Players not chosen to the preseason list are still eligible for the Wooden Award™ midseason list, late season list, and the National Ballot. The National Ballot consists of 15 top players who have proven to their universities that they meet or exceed the qualifications of the Wooden Award. Nearly 1,000 voters will rank in order 10 of those 15 players when voting opens prior to the NCAA Tournament and will allow voters to take into consideration performance during early round games. The Wooden Award All American Team™ will be announced the week of the "Elite Eight" round of the NCAA Tournament. The winner of the 2020 John R. Wooden Award will be presented by Wendy's during the ESPN College Basketball Awards on Friday, April 10, 2020.
 
Hittner and her teammates open the 2019-20 season Friday at the Knapp Center against 2019 Sweet 16 participant, South Dakota State.

John R. Wooden Award Presented by Wendy's 2019-20 Preseason Top 30

Name School Conference Height Class Position Bella Alarie Princeton Ivy League 6-4 Sr. G/F DiJonai Carrington Stanford Pac-12 5-11 Sr. G Chennedy Carter Texas A&M SEC 5-7 Jr. G Kaila Charles Maryland Big Ten 6-1 Sr. G Lauren Cox Baylor Big 12 6-4 Sr. F Crystal Dangerfield Connecticut American 5-5 Sr. G Rennia Davis Tennessee SEC 6-2 Jr. G/F Chelsea Dungee Arkansas SEC 5-11 Jr. G Dana Evans Louisville ACC 5-6 Jr. G Kiah Gillespie Florida State ACC 6-2 Jr. F Haley Gorecki Duke ACC 6-0 Sr. G Tyasha Harris South Carolina SEC 5-10 Sr. G Ruthy Hebard Oregon Pac-12 6-4 Sr. F Becca Hittner Drake Missouri Valley 6-0 Sr. G Rhyne Howard Kentucky SEC 6-2 So. G Sabrina Ionescu# Oregon Pac-12 5-11 Sr. G Juicy Landrum Baylor Big 12 5-8 Sr. G Aari McDonald Arizona Pac-12 5-6 Jr. G Ayana Mitchell LSU SEC 6-0 Sr. F Beatrice Mompremier Miami ACC 6-4 Sr. F Erica Ogwumike Rice Conference USA 5-9 Sr. G Michaela Onyenwere UCLA Pac-12 6-0 Jr. F Ali Patberg Indiana Big Ten 5-11 Jr. G Mikayla Pivec Oregon State Pac-12 5-10 Sr. G DiDi Richards Baylor Big 12 6-1 Jr. G Satou Sabally Oregon Pac-12 6-4 Jr. F Destiny Slocum Oregon State Pac-12 5-7 Jr. G Christyn Williams Connecticut American 5-11 So. G Kiana Williams Stanford Pac-12 5-8 Jr. G Peyton Williams Kansas State Big 12 6-4 Sr. F # indicates player selected as the 2019 Wooden Award Player of the Year