Michigan State men's basketball forward Nick Ward was named to the 2019 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award Preseason Watch list Friday. The annual award that goes out to the top center in college basketball.
Ward's name is listed along with 20 other candidates from schools across the nation. Ward is one of three Big Ten candidates, along with Wisconsin's Ethan Happ and Maryland's Jalen Smith.
After a strong 2017-18 season in which Ward averaged 12.4 points on 64.8 percent from the floor while pulling down over seven rebounds per contest, he declared for the NBA Draft only to withdraw a month before and opting to return to MSU for his junior season.
Ward will get his first chance to showcase his skills in less than two weeks at the Breslin Center, where the Spartans will host Northern Michigan for an exhibition game.
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