LOS ANGELES – Penn State men's basketball senior guard Jalen Pickett has been named a 2023 John R. Wooden Award All-American, as announced by the Los Angeles Athletic Club on ESPN2 Thursday evening.
Pickett is the first Penn State player to ever earn Wooden Award All-America honors. He was already chosen as a Consensus All-American (AP, NABC, USBWA and Sporting News) earlier this month. Pickett is Penn State's first All-American in nearly 70 years. He joins Jesse Arnelle as the only two Nittany Lions in program history to earn second-team or higher All-America status. Arnelle, who led the Nittany Lions to a Final Four, collected first-team All-America honors in 1954 from the Helms Foundation and second-team honors in 1955.
Pickett's long and growing list of national accolades also includes landing on the Oscar Robertson Trophy Late Season Watchlist and being named a Top Five Finalist for the Bob Cousy Award. The Rochester, N.Y. native was also a consensus first-team All-Big Ten selection and earned a spot on the Big Ten All-Tournament team for his role in guiding Penn State to its first conference title game in 12 years.
Pickett's outstanding season led Penn State to a 23-14 overall record, its first NCAA Tournament victory since 2001 and first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2011.
Pickett put together one of the most historic seasons in college basketball history, finishing the 2022-23 campaign averaging 17.7 points per game, 7.4 rebounds per game and 6.6 assists per game with a 50.8 FG%. He is the only Division I men's college basketball player in at least the last 30 seasons (since 1992-93) to finish a season averaging 17/7/6 or better while shooting at least 50% from the floor.
Pickett ranks in the top 15 nationally in both assists per game (6.6 – 5th) and assist-to-turnover ratio (2.89 – 13th) while engineering a Penn State offense that ranks fourth in the nation in fewest turnovers per game (9.0) and 13th in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency metric.
The Rochester, N.Y. native's season highlights included a 41-point game, a 32-point game, 13 20-point games, seven double-doubles and one triple-double. He set a Penn State single-season assist record with 243 assists this season and tied the Penn State single-season field goal record with 260 field goals made.
The six-foot-four guard played his best in Big Ten play, averaging 19.2 points per game, 7.7 rebounds per game and 6.6 assists per game while shooting 55.8% from the field. Pickett finished the conference season in the top five of the Big Ten in scoring (fourth), rebounding (fifth), assists (first), assist-to-turnover ratio (second), and field goal percentage (fourth) in Big Ten games.
Pickett wraps up a historic collegiate career as the only Division I men's college basketball player in AT LEAST the last 37 years to have accumulated marks of 2,000+ career points, 700+ career rebounds and 800+ career assists. Pickett finished his collegiate career with marks of 2,207 points, 780 rebounds and 841 assists through three seasons at Siena and two at Penn State. Through just 68 games as a Nittany Lion, Pickett tallied 1,068 points, 407 rebounds and 378 assists.
The Wooden Award All-America team is comprised of 10 student-athletes who were the top vote-getters in the quest to earn one of college basketball's most prestigious honors. Created in 1976, the John R. Wooden Award Program hosts the most prestigious honors in college basketball recognizing The Wooden Award Most Outstanding Player for men and women, The
Wooden Award All-America Teams for men and women and the annual selection of the Wooden Award Legend of Coaching recipient. Honorees have proven to their university that they meet or exceed the qualifications of the John R. Wooden Award as set forth by Coach Wooden and the Wooden Award Steering Committee, including making progress towards graduation and maintaining at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA.
2023 John R. Wooden Award All-America Team
Zach Edey – Purdue
Trayce Jackson-Davis – Indiana
Jaime Jaquez Jr. – UCLA
Brandon Miller – Alabama
Jalen Pickett – Penn State
Marcus Sasser – Houston
Drew Timme – Gonzaga
Oscar Tshiebwe – Kentucky
Azuolas Tubelis – Arizona
Jalen Wilson – Kansas
