ROSEMONT, Ill. — University of Iowa senior men’s basketball center Luka Garza has been selected as the 2020-21 Big Ten Jesse Owens Male Athlete of the Year, and University of Minnesota senior diver Sarah Bacon was recognized as the 2020-21 Big Ten Female Athlete of the Year, the conference announced Wednesday.
 

We aren't given enough characters to list all the accolades that Luka Garza of @IowaHoops collected in 2020-21.

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— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) July 21, 2021

 

Sarah Bacon of @GopherSwimDive...
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— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) July 21, 2021

Garza is the fifth Hawkeye student-athlete chosen as the Big Ten Jesse Owens Male Athlete of the Year, and the second in the past 35 years (wrestler Brent Metcalf earned the award in 2008). Garza also is the seventh basketball standout to claim the honor and first since Michigan State guard Denzel Valentine in 2016 — no Iowa men’s basketball player has previously received the award.
 
Garza swept all the major postseason awards (Wooden, Naismith, Associated Press, Oscar Robertson, NABC, Lute Olson, Sporting News) to become the 2021 consensus National Player of the Year, the eighth in Big Ten history and first since Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky in 2015.
 
Iowa’s first two-time unanimous consensus first-team All-American paced the nationally-ranked Hawkeyes to 22 victories and a third-place Big Ten finish in 2021. The Washington, D.C., native led the nation in total points (747), player efficiency rating (35.84), 30-point games (8), field goals made (281), and 20-point games (22). Garza also ranked second nationally in points per game (24.1), fifth in free throw attempts (199), 10th in free throw makes (141), and 11th in double-doubles (13). His 747 points extended the single-season school record he set last season (740).
 
A two-time Big Ten Player of the Year, Garza surpassed Roy Marble as Iowa’s all-time leading scorer on Feb. 21, 2021, and finished his Hawkeye career with 2,306 points, which ranks seventh in Big Ten history. In addition to ranking first in school history in career scoring, Garza is tops at Iowa in 30-point games (13), conference scoring (1,399), field goals made (870), field goal attempts (1,594), and 40-point games (2); second in rebounds (931); fourth in double-doubles (34); fifth in blocked shots (154); sixth in free throw makes (446) and attempts (636); and 16th in 3-pointers made (120). He is the only men’s basketball player in Big Ten history to accumulate 2,250 points and 900 rebounds.
 
Garza earned his degree in economics from Iowa in May. He is currently preparing for the 2021 NBA Draft, which will take place July 29 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and will be televised live on ABC and ESPN.
 
Bacon is the second diver named Big Ten Female Athlete of the Year and the first to do so outright — Michigan State’s Julie Farrell-Ovenhouse shared the award with Purdue basketball player Joy Holmes in 1991. Bacon also is the fourth Minnesota student-athlete selected Big Ten Female Athlete of the Year and the first since basketball standout Rachel Banham in 2016.
 
Since taking an Olympic redshirt season in 2020, Bacon has been on a tear in the diving well at both the collegiate and international level. Most recently, Bacon earned a silver medal in the synchronized three-meter event and a bronze medal in the individual three-meter springboard competition last month at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis.
 
In May, she earned an individual silver medal and two Olympic-quota spots for Team USA at the FINA Diving World Cup in both the individual and synchronized three-meter springboard events, making her the first U.S. woman to medal on the three-meter board since two-time Olympian Kelly McCormick did so in 1989. The international success came just after Bacon managed to cap off her historically successful collegiate career with a pair of NCAA Championship titles on both springboard events at the 2021 NCAA Championships in late March.

The pair of titles brought the Indianapolis native's NCAA title count to a remarkable four, making her the winningest female student-athlete in any sport in Minnesota school history. Her 2021 one-meter national championship marked an even more incredible third consecutive NCAA title in the event, a feat accomplished by just one other diver since the NCAA Championships debuted in 1982 (Florida’s Megan Neyer from 1982-84).

Even more remarkably, the awards and honors did not stop there for Bacon, as she was rewarded with the Honda Sport Award for swimming & diving, the first Gopher woman in any sport and only diver from any institution to earn the award in its 45-year history. She also received the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Division I Women's Diver of the Year Award, becoming the fourth Gopher diver since 2011 to receive the award, joining former Olympian Kelci Bryant (2011), two-time NCAA Champion Yu Zhou (2015) and four-time All-American Lexi Tenenbaum (2017).
 
Bacon is a two-time Big Ten Diver of the Year, a 2021 Big Ten Medal of Honor recipient and two-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree. She graduated from Minnesota in May with her bachelor's degree in kinesiology.
 
Garza and Bacon were among a high-powered field of 28 nominees (one male and one female per Big Ten school) that included seven national champions, 24 All-Americans, 17 Big Ten champions, 14 conference Players of the Year and eight who collected a national player of the year accolade.
 
The Big Ten Conference has recognized a Jesse Owens Male Athlete of the Year since 1982 and first honored a Female Athlete of the Year in 1983. The Big Ten Athletes of the Year are selected by a panel of conference media members from nominations submitted by each institution.
 
The complete list of 2020-21 Athlete of the Year nominations, as well as the list of all-time winners for each award, can be found below.

2020-21 BIG TEN ATHLETE OF THE YEAR NOMINEES