Wooden Award 2025 Odds: Gonzaga’s Ryan Nembhard among top 10 preseason favorites

Bulldogs senior guard was listed at +2000 odds to take home the prestigious award according to BetMGM

Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

Gonzaga men’s basketball point guard Ryan Nembhard is among the preseason favorites to take home the 2025 Wooden Award, according to new betting odds released by BetMGM.

The All-WCC guard who set the program record for assists in a single season has +2000 odds to win the prestigious honor entering the 2024-25 campaign. Nembhard is tied with Kansas junior A.J. Storr for the seventh-shortest odds to win the Wooden Award, while a pair of All-American floor generals in Mark Sears from Alabama and RJ Davis from North Carolina leads all the pack at +700 odds apiece. Another 2023-24 All-American in Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson is not far behind at +750 odds.

Nembhard finished the season top 10 in the country in total assists and led the West Coast Conference in assist-to-turnover ratio last season. He had seven games with 10 or more dimes and became the first Bulldog to have back-to-back double-doubles with assists since Dan Dickau did it in 2001. Nembhard also added 12.6 points and grabbed 4.0 rebounds per game.

The transition from Creighton to Gonzaga didn’t come smoothly at times for Nembhard, who struggled to shoot from distance in nonconference play. Once he found his rhythm and began to play with a more controlled pace, Nembhard had the Zags operating at a top-five offense in the sport down the stretch of the regular season and into the NCAA Tournament. He averaged 9.3 assists in Gonzaga’s three postseason games.

With most of the 2023-24 rotation back in Spokane, Nembhard is poised to helm a top-10 team in the country heading into his senior season. The Bulldogs debuted at No. 6 in the Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll and checked in at No. 9 in KenPom.com’s 2025 Pomeroy Ratings. According to BetMGM, Gonzaga has the sixth-best odds at cutting down the nets in April for the school’s first national championship in men’s basketball.

Arkansas grad transfer Khalif Battle was not far behind his new teammate on the betting odds list, as the 6-foot-5 guard sits at +3000 to win the Wooden Award.

Battle, entering his sixth season of college hoops, averaged nearly 15 points and shot better than 35% from 3-point range with the Razorbacks last season. He ended SEC play on quite the heater, as Battle averaged 29.6 points and shot 51.0% from the field over his final seven games of the 2023-24 season.

In August, Nembhard's odds of claiming the Wooden Award were at +4000 according to BetOnline.com. Battle was listed at +3300 odds on the site, while Graham Ike was not far behind Nembhard at +4500 odds to win the award.