The Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year is an annual

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

award presented to the top defensive player in men's basketball in the

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I level for all sports, and its Co ...

. The winner was selected by conference coaches, who were not allowed to vote for players on their own team. The award began in 1984, when the conference consisted of 10 teams and was known as the Pacific-10. It stopped being issued starting in 1988 but was restarted in 2008. The conference added two teams and became the Pac-12 in 2011. Jorge Gutiérrez of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

(2012) and Evan Mobley of

USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...

(2021) are the only players to also win the Pac-12 Player of the Year in the same season.

Gary Payton Gary Dwayne Payton Sr. (born July 23, 1968) is an American former professional basketball player who was a point guard in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely considered one of the greatest point guards of all time, he is best know ...

won both awards in separate seasons with Oregon State, capturing the defensive honor as a freshman in 1987 and the conference player of the year as a senior in 1990. He credited Beavers coach

Ralph Miller Ralph H. Miller (March 9, 1919 – May 15, 2001) was an American college basketball coach, a head coach for 38 years at three universities: Wichita (now known as Wichita State), Iowa, and Oregon State. With an overall record of , his teams had ...

with molding him into a standout defender. Payton played 17 seasons in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

(NBA), and became the only

point guard The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the Basketball positions, five positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position and is usually the shortest player ...

to be named the

NBA Defensive Player of the Year The NBA Defensive Player of the Year is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given since the 1982–83 NBA season to the best defensive player of the regular season. The winner is selected by a panel of 124 sportswriters and b ...

. His son,

Gary Payton II Gary Dwayne Payton II (born December 1, 1992) is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). As a junior and senior playing college basketball for the Oregon State Beavers ...

, later played with Oregon State as well, and was voted the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year in 2015 and 2016. He and Matisse Thybulle (2018, 2019) are the only repeat winners of the award.

Winners

Winners by school

References

{{Pac-12 Conference men's basketball navbox Awards established in 1984 College basketball conference trophies and awards in the United States Defensive Player of the Year