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Posted on Wed, Aug 19, 2009 : 2:43 p.m.

University of Michigan basketball players Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims are Wooden Top 50 players

By Michael Rothstein

A few years ago, Michigan would have been happy if it had one player on the Wooden Award's Top 50 list.

Now, it has two.

Junior guard Manny Harris and senior forward DeShawn Sims were both named to the award's Top 50 players Wednesday in a release announced by the award group.

Michigan is one of nine schools to have two players on the preseason list, joining Kansas (Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich), Duke (Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer), North Carolina (Ed Davis, Deon Thompson), Connecticut (Kemba Walker, Jerome Dyson), Villanova (Scottie Reynolds, Corey Fisher), West Virginia (Devin Ebanks, Da'Sean Butler) and two other Big Ten teams: Michigan State (Kalin Lucas, Raymar Morgan) and Purdue (Robbie Hummel, E'Twaun Moore).

Harris led Michigan with 16.9 points a game and 6.8 rebounds a game and 154 assists last year. Sims was second on the Wolverines at 15.4 ppg., tied with Harris at 6.8 rpg. and had 27 blocks.

Michigan will face 10 players on the Wooden list: Collins and Aldrich from Kansas; Hummel and Moore from Purdue; Lucas and Morgan from Michigan State; Walker and Dyson from Connecticut; Talor Battle from Penn State and Evan Turner from Ohio State.

Depending what happens at the Old Spice Classic, Michigan may also see Solomon Alabi from Florida State in Orlando.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for annarbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or on Twitter @mikerothstein.