| Awarded for | the most outstanding men's defensive basketball player in NCAA Division I |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | NABC |
| History | |
| First award | 1987 |
| Most recent | Jamal Shead, Houston |
| Website | Official website |
The NABC Defensive Player of the Year is a college basketball award given annually by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) to recognize the top men's defensive player in NCAA Division I competition. It has been given since 1987 and was previously known as the Henry Iba Corinthian Award, named after Naismith Hall of Fame coach Henry Iba, who coached at Oklahoma State from 1934 to 1970.
Duke has dominated the award with six recipients who have won a total of nine awards. The only other schools with more than one recipient are UConn, with two recipients who combined for four awards, and Ohio State, Kentucky, and Virginia with two recipients who each won the award once. Three players have been named the NABC Defensive Player of the Year on three occasions—Stacey Augmon of UNLV (1989–1991), Tim Duncan of Wake Forest (1995–1997), and Shane Battier of Duke (1999–2001). Greg Oden (2007) and Anthony Davis (2012) are the only freshmen to have won the award.
Two winners of this award were born outside the main territory of the United States. Duncan was born in the United States Virgin Islands, an insular area of the U.S.; by U.S. law, all natives of the USVI are U.S. citizens by birth.[1] Hasheem Thabeet, the 2008 and 2009 winner, is a native of Tanzania.[2]