Gonzaga’s Graham Ike makes multiple watch lists prior to season opener

It was a double watch list day for Gonzaga’s Graham Ike.

The senior forward was named to the 20-player watch list for the NABA Division I Player of the Year Award on Thursday morning. Hours later, Ike landed on the watch list for the Karl Malone Award, given to the top power forward in college basketball.

Ike has now earned a variety of preseason honors after being named to the 10-man preseason All-WCC first team and collecting preseason third-team All-America honors from CBS Sports.

The sixth-year senior is 41 points from reaching 1,000 in his career and has averaged over 10 points per game in each of his four playing seasons at Wyoming and Gonzaga.

Ike, who has started in 108 of 115 career games, scored 17.3 points per game last year for the Zags to finish third in the WCC while leading the conference in field goal percentage (59.8). He was fifth in WCC rebounding at 7.3 rpg.

The 2026 NABC Division I Player of the Year Award will be presented during the Final Four in Indianapolis.

The 19 other players who made Thursday’s preseason watch list include Tennessee’s Nate Ament, Duke’s Cameron Boozer, Florida’s Alex Condon, UCLA’s Donovan Dent, BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, St. Johns’ Zuby Ejiofor, Kansas State’s PJ Haggerty, UConn’s Alex Karaban, Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn and Braden Smith, Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg, Kentucky’s Otega Oweh, Kansas’ Darryn Peterson, Auburn’s Tahad Pettiford, Alabama’s Labaron Philon, Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz, Texas Tech’s JT Toppoin, Houston’s Milos Uzan and North Carolina State’s Darrion Williams.

Ike returns to the Karl Malone Award watch list for the third consecutive year. He is the first Gonzaga player to appear on a watch list this week for one of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame’s five positional awards, which also include the Bob Cousy Award (point guard), Jerry West Award (shooting guard), Julius Erving Award (small forward) and Kareem Abdul Jabbar Award (center).

The other players nominated for the Karl Malone watch list were Arizona’s Koa Peat, Auburn’s Keyshawn Hall, Baylor’s Michael Rataj, UConn’s Karaban, Duke’s Boozer, Iowa’s Alvaro Folgueiras, Houston’s Joseph Tugler, Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson, Miami’s Malik Reneau, Michigan’s Lendeborg, Florida’s Thomas Haugh, North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson, Purdue’s Kaufman-Renn, Georgia Tech’s Baye Ndongo, St. Johns’ Bryce Hopkins, Syracuse’s Donnie Freeman, Texas Tech’s Toppin, UCLA’s Tyler Bilodeau and Northwestern’s Nick Martinelli.