MANHATTAN, Kan. – Junior guard P.J. Haggerty was among 20 preseason candidates for the Jerry West Award, which is given annually to the nation’s top shooting guard by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The Jerry West Award is named after the late Class of 1980 Hall of Famer and 1959 NCAA Final Four Most Valuable Player. It is celebrating its 12th year highlighting the top shooting guard.
Haggerty was one of 5 finalists for the award in 2025, which was won by Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier.
Fans can help Haggerty advance on the watch list by voting in each of three rounds starting on Friday (Oct. 31) by visiting hoophallawards.com. The watch list of 20 players will be narrowed to 10 in late January then to five in late February. The five finalists will be presented to West’s family and the Hall of Fame’s selection committee, where the winner will be selected.
Haggerty was one of 5 Big 12 players on the preseason team, including Arizona’s Brayden Burries, BYU’s Richie Saunders, Houston’s Emanuel Sharp and Oklahoma State’s Anthony Roy. Others on the list included Creighton’s Josh Dix, Duke’s Isaiah Evans, Florida’s Xaivian Lee, Illinois’ Kylan Boswell, Kentucky’s Otega Oweh, Louisville’s Ryan Conwell, North Carolina’s Seth Trimble, Providence’s Jason Edwards, St. John’s Ian Jackson, UConn’s Solo Ball, USC’s Rodney Rice, Utah State’s Mason Falslev, Virginia’s Malik Thomas, Washington’s Wesley Yates III and Wisconsin’s John Blackwell.
Haggerty has already received a number of preseason accolades, including All-America honors from CBS Sports, Jay Bilas and @CBBAnalytics and All-Big 12 honors from the league coaches.
Haggerty scored a game-high 23 points in Friday’s exhibition at Missouri, connecting on 8-of-14 field goals, including 2-of-4 from 3-point range, and 5-of-7 free throws to go with a game-high 6 assists, 2 steals and 2 rebounds in just under 25 minutes of action.
A consensus Second Team All-American at Memphis, Haggerty is coming off a career year in 2024-25, in which, he became the first Division I player since Ja Morant in 2018-19 to average 21.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals to go with 6.5 free throws per game. He ranked third nationally in both scoring (21.7 ppg.) and total points (759), while his 759 points were an AAC single-season record and the most since Dajuan Wagner (762) set the school single-season record in 2001-02. He became the first Memphis Tiger since 2008 to be named an AP All-American, while he was selected as the AAC Player of the Year, First Team All-AAC and the Most Outstanding Player of the 2025 AAC Championship.
For more information on the 2025 Jerry West Award, please visit hoophallawards.com and follow @hoophallu and #WestAward on X and Instagram.