Bookout Named to Wooden Preseason All-America Team

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NORMAN, Okla. Oklahoma junior men's basketball player Kevin Bookout was named to the John R. Wooden Award Preseason All-America Team on Thursday. Bookout, along with 49 other collegians, was picked by the Wooden Award's national preseason selection committee.

Wooden Preseason Top 50

The 6-8, 259-pound forward was selected to the preseason list despite the fact that he played in just 13 games during the 2003-04 season. Bookout averaged 7.6 points and a team-high 5.5 rebounds per game, and also shot a team-best .516 from the field last year before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery on Feb. 5. As a freshman in 2002-03, he averaged 9.4 points and 5.9 boards a game while leading the Big 12 with his .587 field goal percentage. He was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team for his efforts.

“Kevin's a foundation guy,” said OU head coach Kelvin Sampson. “You build a program around him because of his strengths in every area. He's a pillar of strength inside, literally and figuratively. He's lost weight which means he's quicker. He'll play harder longer and play more minutes. He also understands the program. He's a great inside post player. There are not many kids who have the potential to be a double-double guy, but Kevin does. I think he's one of the best post players in our league and we expect him to have a great year. We're depending on Kevin a lot.”

Ten NCAA conferences are represented on the list, including the ACC (12 players), Big East (8 players), Big 12 (6 players), Pac 10 (6 players), Big Ten, (5 players), SEC (5 players), Conference USA (5 players), West Coast Conference (1 player), Mountain West Conference (1 player) and the American East Conference (1 player).

Other Big 12 players on the preseason list include Kansas' Keith Langford and Wayne Simien, Oklahoma State's Joey Graham and John Lucas, and Texas' P.J. Tucker.

Created in 1976, the John R. Wooden Award is the most prestigious individual honor in college basketball. It is bestowed upon the nation's best player at an institution of higher education who has proven to his university that he is making progress toward graduation and maintaining a cumulative 2.0 GPA. Previous winners include such notables as Michael Jordan ('84), Larry Bird ('79), Tim Duncan ('97) and last year's recipient, Jameer Nelson ('04).

In mid January, the Wooden Award committee will release the Midseason Top 30 on CBS Sports, and on Tuesday, March 29, the 10-player Wooden Award All-America Team will be announced. The 2005 Award ceremony, which will include the presentation of the Men's and Women's Wooden Award, the Wooden Award All-America Teams and the Legends of Coaching Award, will be held at The Los Angeles Athletic Club on April 9 and will be broadcast live by CBS.

Oklahoma's Hollis Price was a member of the 2003 Wooden Award All-American Team. He finished third in the Wooden Award balloting.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Bookout Named to Wooden Preseason All-America Team

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