Illinois junior forward Berry Wallace has landed on the preseason watch list for one of college basketball’s top position awards, earning a spot among the 20 players nominated for the Cheryl Miller Small Forward of the Year Award, presented by the Naismith Awards, on Wednesday, October 28.
Wallace is one of five Big Ten players on the list and one of 20 forwards nationally to get the nod. It’s the first time in her career she’s appeared on the Miller Award watch list.
The recognition comes after a big sophomore season in which Wallace started all 34 games and put together a stat line that helped define Illinois’ year. She averaged 18.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.8, 0.7 steals, and 0.4 blocks, while earning unanimous First Team All-Big Ten honors. She also led the conference in minutes per game at 35.7, piled up a team-high 626 points, and finished sixth on the program’s single-season scoring list.
Wallace also delivered plenty of volume scoring. She posted 16 20-point games, which ranked fifth-most in the Big Ten and top-25 nationally in NCAA Division I during the 2025-26 season. Her season included a career-best 29 points against Northwestern, her first career double-double in the opener, and nine games in which she played all 40 minutes.
From the foul line, the Pickerington, Ohio native was just as sharp. She shot 86.5 percent on free throws, going 122-for-141. That mark ranked fourth in the Big Ten and eighth on Illinois’ single-season free-throw percentage chart.
Her sophomore year also brought three Big Ten Weekly Honor Roll selections on November 10, January 5, and January 19, along with Academic All-Big Ten honors.
Wallace is now the first Fighting Illini player to make the Cheryl Miller Small Forward of the Year Award preseason watch list under Shauna Green. She joins Kendall Bostic, Genesis Bryant, and two-time selection Makira Cook as Illinois players under Green to appear on women’s Naismith Starting 5 preseason watch lists. Bostic went on to become a top-10 finalist for her award.
The Cheryl Miller Award is one of five women’s Naismith Starting 5 honors. The preseason watch lists for the Nancy Lieberman Award, Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, Katrina McClain Award, and Lisa Leslie Award will be released from Oct.
26-30. Fan voting begins Friday, October 30, with the watch list of 20 players for the 2027 Nancy Lieberman Awards set to be trimmed to 10 in February and then to five in March.
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