Clara Strack Selected to the Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 Watch List

LEXINGTON, Ky. – University of Kentucky women’s basketball versatile center Clara Strack has been selected to the Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 Watch List, it was announced by the organization Wednesday.

The list, which is selected by a preseason poll of national college basketball experts, comprises 25 student-athletes who are frontrunners for the most prestigious honors in college basketball: the Wooden Award All-American Team™ and the Wooden Award® Most Outstanding Player.

Strack has already been named to the Naismith Trophy Player of the Year Watch List and the Lisa Leslie Center of the Year Watch List, while she also has been named a U.S. Basketball Writers Association Ann Meyers Drysdale Player of the Week (Nov. 25), Southeastern Conference Player of the Week (Nov. 25) and Preseason All-SEC Team selection by both the coaches and media.

Through 16 games in 2025-26, the junior is averaging 16.8 points per game, 9.8 rebounds per game, 2.1 assists per game, 2.9 blocks per game, which is ranked fifth in the nation, and 1.6 steals per game.

The Wildcat is the only player in the country to have at least 16.0 ppg, 9.0 rpg and 2.5 bpg.

While the versatile center routinely stuffs the stats with impressive combinations, she recently became the first Kentucky player to have two games with at least 19 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and two steals in a single season since All-American Victoria Dunlap in 2010-11 (Hofstra, Missouri).

Her season highs through 16 games include 27 points (at Buffalo), three 3s (Missouri), 16 rebounds (USC Upstate), four assists (last Central Michigan), four steals (at Miami) and seven blocks (Hofstra).

Strack has logged double-doubles in exactly half of her games this season – eight of 16, which is ranked sixth in the nation. She became the only Kentucky player since at least 2002-03 to have six double-doubles within the first seven games of a season.

The Buffalo, New York, native is shooting 51.6 percent from the field, while also knocking down 12 3s through 16 games.

She is coming off of a career-high-tying three 3s against Missouri at home on Sunday, which marked the second league game in the last two seasons she has hit a trio of 3s. Since the start of last season, she has the most games with at least one made 3 among players 6-5 or taller in Division I women’s basketball as of Jan. 6 (22 games).

Strack is one of the best passing centers in the nation, too. She is one of five players in the country averaging at least 16.0 ppg, 9.0 rpg and 2.0 apg.

Since her first game under Brooks at UK, she has dished out multiple assists in 32 of her last 47 games, including multiple assists in 11 of 16 this season. She has logged two games this season with at least four assists, while she set a career high on eight assists against NKU on Nov. 7, 2025.

Take a peek at some of her most interesting game highlights so far this season:

• Missouri on Jan. 4: After making a career-high three 3s and three blocks, she became the first SEC player to have at least three 3s and three blocks in the same game since Aliyah Boston of South Carolina on Dec. 31, 2020.
• Hofstra on Dec. 28: She became the first SEC player to have at least 24 points, 11 rebounds and seven blocks in a single game since Teaira McCowan of Mississippi State on Nov. 6, 2018.
• at No. 21/19 Louisville on Nov. 22: She earned her fifth straight double-double.
• Purdue on Nov. 18: She became the only DI women’s player, since at least 2002-03, to have at least 17 points, 13 rebounds, five blocks, two assists and one made 3 in a single game.
• at Buffalo on Nov. 9: She became the only UK player to have at least 27 points, 12 rebounds, four blocks, two assists and one steal in a game since at least 2002-03. Also in that game, she became just the fourth SEC player to have those numbers in a game since at least 2002-03 (and the first since South Carolina’s Alaina Coates vs. Kentucky on Feb. 4, 2016).

Strack, at the turn of the new year, remained one of two player’s in Division I (also Sarah Strong, UConn) to have at least 675 points, 425 rebounds, 100 blocks, 100 assists and 45 steals since the start of last season.

For more information on the Kentucky women’s basketball team, visit UKathletics.com or follow @KentuckyWBB on X, Instagram, and Facebook.