UConn basketball stars Sarah Strong and Alex Karaban are finalists for a pair of prestigious season-ending awards given to the top power forwards in the nation.

Strong, a sophomore, is one of the five finalists for the 2026 Katrina McClain Award. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and Women's Basketball Coaches Association made the announcement Thursday.

Karaban, a senior, also was named by the Hall of Fame as one of five finalists for the Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award on Thursday.

Earlier this week, Azzi Fudd and Solo Ball were named among the finalists for the awards honoring the top shooting guards in the nation.

McClain was a two-time All-American, 1987 National Player of the Year, and a member of the Hall of Fame’s 2012 class. She played collegiately at Georgia and won two Olympic gold medals.

Strong was selected as the unanimous Big East Player of the Year and the Defensive Player of the Year. Accompanying those honors was her selection to the All-Big East first team and the All-Defensive Team.

She is averaging 18.5 points per game while shooting 60.1% from the floor and 42.7% from long distance. She leads the Huskies in scoring, rebounds, steals and blocks and has put up double-digit points in 47 consecutive games.

Strong already has earned National Player of the Year honors from The Athletic and ESPN. The Athletic, ESPN and USA Today also named her a first-team All-American.

Should Strong win the McClain award, she would join Napheesa Collier (2019) as UConn players to be honored.

As for Karaban, a senior, he is in the final stretch of an incredible career that has seen him win two national championships and become the winningest player in Huskies history. He is in the top 10 of all-time points in the UConn men’s basketball program, and on Senior Day last month, he became the first active player added to the Huskies of Honor.

He was a first-team All-Big East selection after averaging 12.9 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 31 regular-season games. Entering the Big East tournament on Thursday, he was shooting 47.9 percent from the floor, 40.0 percent from 3-point territory and 84.6 percent from the free throw line.

He reached double figures 21 times in the regular season and added a 15-point effort Thursday night in UConn’s 93-68 win against Xavier in the quarterfinal round of the Big East tournament.

UConn fans can vote for Strong, Karaban, Fudd and Ball starting Friday at 1 p.m. at hoophallawards.com. The fan vote will count as the equivalent of one committee-member vote.

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