Will this be Oscar Tshiebwe’s final game in Rupp? The Kentucky star previews Senior Night.
On Wednesday night, Oscar Tshiebwe will play his 34th game in Rupp Arena.
Will it be his last?
The Kentucky men’s basketball star and reigning national player of the year is set to join five of his teammates on the Rupp floor for Senior Night festivities prior to the Wildcats’ home finale against Vanderbilt, but those players’ mere presence on the court shouldn’t be taken as a sign of any future leanings.
All six players have remaining college eligibility — thanks to the extra year the NCAA granted all athletes who played through the 2020-21 season impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic — and UK has already announced that just because these players have chosen to go through the Senior Night ceremony doesn’t mean any have made a final decision regarding what they’ll do next season. (Davion Mintz went through UK’s Senior Night twice, for example.)
Jacob Toppin, Sahvir Wheeler, Antonio Reeves, CJ Fredrick and Brennan Canada will all have decisions to make after this season — and UK fans will surely be paying close attention — but it’s the future of Tshiebwe, a national player of the year who’s already returned to college once, that holds the most intrigue, both locally and nationally.
Tshiebwe, Toppin and Canada met with reporters Tuesday morning to preview Wednesday night’s game and festivities. And Tshiebwe and Toppin were asked what it would take for them to return to Kentucky for one last season.
“I’ll let you answer that,” Tshiebwe said with a smile, turning to his teammate.
“I’ll do whatever you do,” replied Toppin, also smiling.
“I like playing with Jacob,” Tshiebwe declared. “So I’ll just follow Jacob.”
It was a fun moment between guys who have now shared the same jersey for two and a half seasons, though it didn’t shed much light on what either plans to do following this season.
Toppin did talk about the matchup with Vanderbilt being his “last game in Rupp Arena” at one point Tuesday, but he later clarified that he meant it would be his last home game this season. Any further announcements will have to wait until Kentucky plays its final game, whenever that time comes.
Tshiebwe won’t repeat as college basketball’s player of the year this season. Purdue big man Zach Edey is regarded as the near-certain pick for the honor. But the Kentucky star has had another impressive run with the Wildcats, averaging 16.4 points and 12.8 rebounds in 33.3 minutes per game going into Wednesday night.
On Monday, he was named the Southeastern Conference player of the week after scoring 25 points in a victory at Florida then tallying 22 points and 17 rebounds in a blowout of Auburn. He was an astounding 20-for-23 from the field in those games.
His defensive skills have been maligned for much of the season, but Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl said Saturday that Tshiebwe’s ball-screen defense was much improved against the Tigers. The last consensus national player of the year to come back to college was Tyler Hansbrough, more than a decade ago. He wasn’t a repeat winner of that award either. But he did lead North Carolina to the national title in his return year.
That was Tshiebwe’s goal before his second season at Kentucky began, and that remains his goal now. With UK on a four-game winning streak and playing its best basketball with the postseason just a week away, things are looking up for the Wildcats.
“They always say it’s better to start bad and finish good. We started really bad,” Tshiebwe said. “Some people had no hope. Some people think, ‘It’s over for Kentucky.’ For us, it was good. We learned how to win. Now we know every game we play, for us, is the Super Bowl. Like Coach says, we have nothing to lose. And we have to choose not to lose anymore. … Everybody refuses to lose. We’re just focusing on that.
“My dream was to win a national championship. Right now, I’ve got so much confidence. Because my boys (are) taking rebounds from my hands. I’ve got Chris (Livingston) and Jacob taking rebounds from my hands. Everybody is making shots. We stay locked in, and we communicate. And I can see this team go far. Some teams (are) probably gonna be scared, because we’re going to be a high seed. We’re going to play some good teams. For me, I say, ‘Be ready.’ … We’re here. We’re going to keep fighting.”
Tshiebwe’s NBA Draft stock has dipped over his second season at Kentucky. (He played his first season and a half at West Virginia before transferring in during the middle of the 2020-21 campaign.) Viewed at the end of last season as a surefire second-round pick — maybe a first-rounder, if the right team took a liking to him — Tshiebwe is now absent from many 2023 draft projections.
That uncertainty makes his postseason decision a complicated one, especially given the alternative of returning to UK for a third season, making another year of name, image and likeness money, and perhaps restoring some of his pro stock in the process.
None of that is on his mind right now, he says. Two games remain, and then the postseason.
Will Wednesday night mark his final appearance as a UK player in Rupp Arena? That will be a decision for another time. There’s still basketball left to play.
“This will be a little bit emotional,” said Tshiebwe, who will graduate later this year with a degree in communications. “... I still can’t believe how fast these four years flew by. It seems like yesterday I was a freshman. But we’re just going to be locked into the game and try to finish up. We have a lot of work we have to do this year to help this team — to take it where we want to go. We can’t really focus too much on Senior Night. We just have to make sure we stay locked in.”
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This story was originally published February 28, 2023 at 12:33 PM.
