Dalton Knecht moves up in DraftKings odds to win the Wooden Award
Dalton Knecht has climbed to second on DraftKings’ odds to win the Wooden Award, given annually to college basketball most outstanding player. Knecht, the transfer wing from Northern Colorado, is listed at +2000 and is second behind Purdue’s Zach Edey, who is -700 to win the award.
A Tennessee men’s basketball player has never won the Wooden Award. Former Tennessee Lady Vols star Candace Parker won the women’s Wooden Award in both 2006-07 and 2007-08.
Knecht is listed ahead of four players who have +3000 odds: North Carolina’s RJ Davis, Duke’s Kyle Filipowski, UConn’s Tristen Newton and Kansas’s Hunter Dickinson.
Edey is averaging 23.3 points and 11.5 rebounds per game this season. Last season he was a consensus All-American, the Associated Press Player of the Year, the Naismith Trophy winner and the Wooden Award winner. He had 23 points and 10 rebounds in win over Tennessee in the Maui Invitational on November 21.
Knecht is Tennessee’s leading scorer and is fourth in the SEC at 18.8 points per game. On the season he’s shooting 47.9% from the field and 40.0% from the 3-point line.
On Monday Knecht was named the SEC Player of the Week for a second straight week as well as the Naismith Trophy Player of the Week. He scored 64 points over two games, an 85-66 win over Florida and a 91-71 win over Alabama.
Knecht had a career-high 39 points against Florida, then added 25 more against Alabama. He went 21-for-43 from the field in the two games and was 5-for-12 from the 3-point line.
He scored 28 points at Mississippi State and 36 at Georgia before being named Co-SEC Player of the Week last week, sharing the honors with Alabama’s Mark Sears.
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Knecht has now won SEC Player of the Week three times this season, matching the total for Grant Williams during the 2018-19 season. Admiral Schofield is the last Tennessee player to win the award back-to-back, doing so during the 2018-19 season.
Knecht is the first player to win the award three times in a season since Auburn’s Walker Kessler in 2021-22. Kentucky Immanuel Quickley in 2019-20 was the last player to win the award in consecutive weeks.
Knecht scored 17 points in the first half against Alabama before settling for just eight points in the second half.
He had 26 points in the second half at Mississippi State on January 10 and 20 in the second half at Georgia a week ago. He had 22 in the first half against Florida on Tuesday, scoring 20 of Tennessee’s final 22 points of the half, all in the final 7:05 before halftime.
Knecht is the only Tennessee player in at least 20 years to score 25 or more points in four straight games and is averaging 32.0 points per game over his last four games. He’s the fifth SEC player over the last 14 seasons to do so and the first since LSU’s Cam Thomas during the 2020-21 season.
