Kentucky puzzled by WVU’s Bob Huggins throwing shade at Oscar Tshiebwe
After his team defeated Elon on Thursday, West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins referred to Oscar Tshiebwe as an “alleged McDonald’s All-American.”
Huggins did so while making the point that he holds players to a high standard.
“They’re going to earn their stripes, so to speak,” Huggins said. “If they don’t like it, go ahead and transfer.
“We lost an alleged McDonald’s All-American because he didn’t like the fact that we were making him do things that were hard. So, we’re fine.”
When asked about Huggins’ comment, Kentucky’s Davion Mintz smiled.
“It’s funny,” he said, presumably meaning ludicrous rather than humorous. “It’s hard to comment on something like that. Oscar is exactly the opposite of everything he just said.”
Tshiebwe, who transferred to Kentucky from West Virginia at the semester break of the last school year, went into UK’s game Friday (a 77-59 win against Ohio) leading the nation in rebounding (18.7 per game) and offensive rebounding (9.0 per game).
“We love Oscar here,” Mintz said. “We’re going to keep loving him. I’m happy he found a new home. That’s all it’s about.
“That’s pretty funny, honestly,” Mintz added. “That’s the furthest thing from the truth.”
UK Coach John Calipari, a friend of Huggins, was asked for a reaction.
“We’re still friends,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what he said or how he said it. … I don’t know the context.
“But it’s hard to say he doesn’t work hard. He’s averaging 20 rebounds.”
Empty seats
UK announced an attendance of 19,045. Rupp Arena’s capacity for basketball is 20,545.
When asked about the empty seats, Calipari cited reasons other than the caliber of the competition.
“I don’t blame anybody for not coming to the games because of COVID or because of construction and traffic,” he said. The latter was a reference to the ongoing upgrades to Rupp Arena and the surrounding convention center. “… We’ve got an older crowd. Not old-old. (Rather) old-old-old.”
Calipari suggested fans who purchased tickets give them away to schools or other entities that can translate into people in seats.
Calipari also suggested that Friday night games are not ideal for drawing fans because of conflicts with high school football.
“We need to play some Sunday games instead of Friday,” he said.
In an apparent reference to nondescript opponents, Calipari said teams must play what he called “tune up games.”
“But this game really showed up something,” he said of playing Ohio.
Looking ahead
Kentucky’s schedule next week has two winless opponents. UK plays Albany on Monday and North Florida on Friday.
Albany (0-3) will look for its first victory Saturday night at Eastern Kentucky.
In losses to Towson (77-56), LaSalle (67-64) and Harvard (63-53), Albany totaled twice as many turnovers (52) as assists (26). The Great Danes made 39.1 percent of their shots (27.8 percent) from three-point range.
Blue Ribbon, Lindy’s and Athlon all picked Albany to finish seventh in the 10-team America East Conference.
North Florida (0-5) will look for its first victory at home Saturday against Webber International.
Surely few teams have a more challenging early schedule. The Ospreys’ first five games were all on the road, four coming against Power Five teams.
North Florida lost at Texas Tech (89-74), at Texas A&M (64-46), at Grand Canyon (65-51), at Arizona State (72-63) and at UCLA (98-63).
Kentucky will be North Florida’s sixth road game in the first seven.
North Florida has been outscored 77.6-59.4 and outrebounded 42.6-26.8.
Blue Ribbon, Lindy’s and Athlon all picked North Florida to finish second in the East Division of the Atlantic Sun Conference.
Rare opportunity
With three starters returning from an NCAA Tournament team, scheduling high-major non-conference opponents was not easy for Ohio.
“We called the whole ACC, SEC and Big Ten,” Coach Jeff Boals said. “No one in the ACC would play us. No one in the Big Ten would play us.
“I’ve said this, I really appreciate Coach Calipari and Coach (Will) Wade agreeing to play us.”
Ohio plays at LSU on Dec. 1.
“For us, we don’t get too many opportunities like this to play this caliber of teams,” Boals said.
Played against UK
Boals (pronounced “Bowls”) played two games against Kentucky as a player for Ohio.
As a freshman, he played one minute in a 73-63 loss to UK. The game was played in Cincinnati on Dec. 23, 1991.
As a senior, Boals played 15 minutes and scored five points in a 79-74 Ohio loss at Kentucky on Nov. 30, 1994.
Of people who have played and later coached against Kentucky, three come immediately to mind: Florida Coach Mike White played against UK as a player for Ole Miss, Arizona State Coach Bobby Hurley played against UK as a player for Duke and Vanderbilt Coach Jerry Stackhouse played against UK as a player for North Carolina.
This story was originally published November 20, 2021 at 12:39 AM.
