USBWA National Freshman of the Year
The USBWA National Freshman of the Year is an annual basketball honor given to college basketball's most outstanding freshman male player and female player by the United States Basketball Writers Association, an association of college basketball journalists. Since 2011 the men's award has been called the Wayman Tisdale Award while the women's award has been called the Tamika Catchings Award since 2020. The award was first given following the 1988–89 season for men and 1991–92 for women.
There has never been a tie for the men's award, but there have been two for the women, with Tasha Humphrey and Candice Wiggins sharing the 2004–05 award, and Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark sharing honors in 2020–21. Five players have been named a national player of the year by receiving one of the major awards for either men or women in the same season as being named the USBWA Freshman of the Year. Among men's players, Kevin Durant was the first in 2007, followed by Anthony Davis in 2012, Zion Williamson in 2019, and Cooper Flagg in 2025. The first woman to receive both honors was Bueckers in 2021.
On July 26, 2010, the USBWA announced that they would rename the men's National Freshman of the Year award after the late Wayman Tisdale, who in 1983 was named a first-team All-American as a freshman at Oklahoma. The women's award was officially named in honor of Tamika Catchings on October 17, 2019. As a freshman at Tennessee in 1997–98, she averaged 18.2 points for the undefeated national champion Lady Volunteers. Catchings went on to be named a three-time USBWA All-American and the organization's national player of the year in 2000.
Winners
- Freshmen are ineligible for the third major player of the year award in women's basketball, the Wade Trophy.
- Chris Jackson legally changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in 1991 upon his conversion to Islam.
- No award was presented to the men from 1995 to 1997, although the USBWA website does not indicate the reason.