Lisa Leslie Award

The Lisa Leslie Award is an award presented annually to the best women's basketball center in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I competition. It is named after Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie, an eight-time All Star and two-time champion of the WNBA in her 12 years career with the LA Sparks. In 2002, Leslie became the first player to dunk in a WNBA game, en route to a second championship for the Sparks. Leslie retired as the WNBA all-time leading scorer & rebounder and is a four-time Olympic gold medalist.^[1]

Lisa Leslie Award
Awarded for	The best women's college basketball center in the United States
Country	United States
Presented by	Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame & Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA)
First award	2018
Currently held by	Lauren Betts, UCLA
Website	Lisa Leslie Award

The Lisa Leslie Award was first presented in 2018, when WBCA and the Naismith Hall, in collaboration with ESPN, incorporated the previously existing Nancy Lieberman Award, presented to the top NCAA women's point guard, into a new set of awards known as the "Naismith Starting Five", that are presented at the WBCA convention (except in 2020, when the convention was not held due to the coronavirus pandemic) to players at each of the five traditional basketball positions. These awards parallel a previously existing set of men's basketball positional awards also presented by the Hall. In addition to the Lieberman Award, first presented in 2000, the other three new awards are:^[2]

• Ann Meyers Drysdale Shooting Guard Award
• Katrina McClain Power Forward Award
• Cheryl Miller Small Forward Award

Winner for each of the Starting Five awards is determined by a selection committee consisting of Hall of Famers, WBCA coaching members, and media, and headed by the award's namesake. Fan voting through the Hall's website is also incorporated into the selection process.

Key

*	Awarded, in addition, a national Player of the Year award: the Naismith College Player of the Year, Wade Trophy or the John R. Wooden Award
Player (X)	Denotes the number of times the player has received the Lisa Leslie Award

Winners

Season	Player	School	Class	Ref.
2017–18	A'ja Wilson*	South Carolina	Senior
2018–19	Megan Gustafson*	Iowa	Senior	[3]
2019–20	Aliyah Boston	South Carolina	Freshman	[4]
2020–21	Aliyah Boston (2)	South Carolina	Sophomore	[5]
2021–22	Aliyah Boston* (3)	South Carolina	Junior	[6]
2022–23	Aliyah Boston (4)	South Carolina	Senior	[7][8]
2023–24	Cameron Brink	Stanford	Senior	[9]
2024-25	Lauren Betts	UCLA	Junior	[10]

Winners by school

School	Winners	Years
South Carolina	5	2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
Iowa	1	2019
Stanford	1	2024
UCLA	1	2025

See also

• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award – the counterpart to the Leslie Award; given to the best men's NCAA center