The NABC Defensive Player of the Year is a college basketball award given annually by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) to recognize the top men's defensive player in NCAA Division I competition. It has been given since 1987 and was previously known as the Henry Iba Corinthian Award, named after Naismith Hall of Fame coach Henry Iba, who coached at Oklahoma State from 1934 to 1970.
Duke has dominated the award with six recipients who have won a total of nine awards. The only other schools with more than one recipient are UConn, with two recipients who combined for four awards, and Ohio State, Kentucky, and Virginia with two recipients who each won the award once. Three players have been named the NABC Defensive Player of the Year on three occasions—Stacey Augmon of UNLV (1989–1991), Tim Duncan of Wake Forest (1995–1997), and Shane Battier of Duke (1999–2001). Greg Oden (2007) and Anthony Davis (2012) are the only freshmen to have won the award.
Four winners of this award were born outside the main territory of the United States. Duncan was born in the United States Virgin Islands, an insular area of the U.S.; by U.S. law, all natives of the USVI are U.S. citizens by birth. Hasheem Thabeet, the 2008 and 2009 winner, is a native of Tanzania. Udoka Azubuike and Rueben Chinyelu, respectively the 2020 and 2026 recipients, were born in Nigeria.
Key † Co-Players of the Year* Awarded a national player of the year award that same season:Sporting News; Oscar Robertson Trophy; Associated Press; NABC; UPI; Naismith; Wooden; Adolph Rupp Trophy Player (X) Denotes the number of times the player has been awarded the NABC DPOY award at that point
Winners
Season Player School Position Class Reference 1986–87 Duke PG 1987–88 Duke F 1988–89 UNLV SF 1989–90 (2) UNLV SF 1990–91 (3) UNLV SF 1991–92 Georgetown C 1992–93 Duke SF 1993–94 Marquette C 1994–95 Wake Forest C 1995–96 (2) Wake Forest C 1996–97* (3) Wake Forest C 1997–98 Duke SG 1998–99 Duke SF 1999–00† (2) Duke SF * Cincinnati C 2000–01 * (3) Duke SF 2001–02 PG 2002–03 UConn C 2003–04 * (2) UConn C 2004–05 Duke PF 2005–06 (2) Duke PF 2006–07 Ohio State C 2007–08 UConn C 2008–09 (2) UConn C 2009–10 Mississippi State C 2010–11 Morehead State PF / C 2011–12* Kentucky C 2012–13† * Indiana SG Kansas C 2013–14 Ohio State PG 2014–15 Kentucky PF / C 2015–16 Virginia SG 2016–17 West Virginia PG 2017–18 (2) West Virginia PG 2018–19 Virginia SF 2019–20 Kansas C 2020–21 Baylor PG 2021–22 Auburn C 2022–23 UCLA SG 2023–24 Houston PG 2024–25 Creighton C 2025–26 Florida C
References
External links