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Caleb Swanigan now has company as a Purdue player on a watch list for a national award. Senior center A.J. Hammons is now on the watch list for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award which is given to the nation's best center, and given his talent and history he just might get it.
By mid-February, the watch list of 20 players for the 2016 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award will be narrowed down to just 10. In March, five finalists will be presented to Mr. Abdul-Jabbar and the Hall of Fame's selection committee. The winner of the 2016 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award will be presented at the ESPN College Basketball Awards presented by Wendy's from Club Nokia in Los Angeles, California, on Friday, April 8, 2016. Broadcast information will be released at a later date.
One of two Big Ten players named to the list (Indiana's Thomas Bryant), the 7-foot center led the team in scoring (11.9 PPG), rebounds (6.6 RPG), blocked shots (96) and field goal percentage (.540). He became the third player in history to lead the Big Ten in blocked shots three times (Penn State's Calvin Booth; Purdue's JaJuan Johnson) and was just the third player in Big Ten history to record 1,000 points, 600 rebounds and 250 blocks by the end of his junior year and the first to do so in 35 years (Ohio State's Herb Williams in 1978-80; Purdue's Joe Barry Carroll in 1977-79).
Hammons currently ranks 37th on the school's career points list (1,099), 12th on the rebounding chart (660) and third in career blocked shots (259).
Here are the remaining players on the list:
2016 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year Award Candidates
Kaleb Tarczewski, Arizona
Mamadou Ndiaye, UC Irvine
Josh Scott, Colorado
Egidijus Mockevicius, Evansville
Przemek Karnowski, Gonzaga
Thomas Bryant, Indiana
Jameel McKay, Iowa State
Cheick Diallo, Kansas
Skal Labissiere, Kentucky
Diamond Stone, Maryland
Stephen Zimmerman, UNLV
Kennedy Meeks, North Carolina
Zach Auguste, Notre Dame
AJ Hammons, Purdue
Jakob Poeltl, Utah
Damian Jones, Vanderbilt
Daniel Ochefu, Villanova
Josh Hawkinson, Washington State
Joel Bolomboy, Weber State
Devin Williams, West Virginia