Star basketball transfer Oscar Tshiebwe picks Kentucky. ‘It’s a great match.’
It took a little longer than John Calipari had originally hoped, but his wish has finally come true.
Oscar Tshiebwe will be a Kentucky Wildcat.
It was announced Sunday that Tshiebwe — a 6-foot-9, 260-pound center from Lubumbashi, Congo — plans to transfer to UK after spending the first season and a half of his college basketball career at West Virginia.
Tshiebwe (pronounced SHEE-bway) will enroll in classes at Kentucky for the second semester, making him eligible to practice with the Wildcats for the remainder of this season. An expected change to NCAA transfer rules will allow him to make his debut for the Wildcats at the beginning of next season without sitting out any additional time.
His latest recruitment was a quick one, but Tshiebwe’s path to Lexington has been years in the making.
Calipari started pursuing the former five-star prospect late in his high school career and hosted him for an official visit before his senior season. But Tshiebwe, who moved to the United States in late 2015, ultimately signed with West Virginia, a program that began recruiting him during his earliest days in the country.
Tshiebwe was the No. 23 overall recruit in the 2019 class — according to the 247Sports rankings — and made an immediate impact in Morgantown, leading the Mountaineers with team highs of 11.2 points and 9.3 rebounds in 23.3 minutes per game as a freshman last season.
He struggled — relative to his freshman year — through the first several games of this season, and WVU head coach Bob Huggins announced Jan. 1 that he would be leaving the program.
Kentucky was one of the first schools to reach out to Tshiebwe and one of four colleges — Illinois, Miami and North Carolina State were the others — to hold a video conference with him over the past few days. On Sunday, his commitment to the Wildcats was made public.
“Oscar makes for a great addition,” 247Sports analyst Travis Branham told the Herald-Leader. “He’s a bruising, high-motor big man who just battles on the glass and can score in the post. His skill set, over the years, has continued to develop. He’s not overly polished, but his blend of physicality and motor enable him to be a capable post scorer but also a load in the paint, when it comes to battling on the glass and getting those scrap buckets off of misses and cleaning up on the defensive end.”
He should be an instant-impact player at UK next season.
Coming to Kentucky
There were high hopes for Tshiebwe at West Virginia this winter after his stellar freshman campaign.
In the preseason, ESPN ranked him as the No. 13 player in all of college basketball, with CBS Sports putting him at No. 15 on a similar list. He was also mentioned on several preseason award lists — including the Naismith watch list — and was generally seen as one of the best big men in the entire sport.
“I think all of those things are based on a year ago,” Huggins said before the season began. “The people who had good years a year ago are going to be named on those lists. I think it’s a testament to what Oscar did and how impressive he was to people a year ago. The challenge now is to continue to get better and continue to climb that list.”
Tshiebwe struggled, however, managing just two double-doubles over WVU’s first 10 games. (He had 10 such games last season, including five in Big 12 play). Huggins pointed to the negative effect that the COVID-19 pandemic had on Tshiebwe’s development, limiting his time in the gym as he was still polishing his game and finding himself as a player.
In his last game with the team — a 73-51 victory over Northeastern on Dec. 29 — Tshiebwe had 12 points and 15 rebounds in 21 minutes, and Huggins saw signs of positive movement.
“Oscar has struggled a little bit early but I think he’s starting to come out of it from an offensive standpoint,” the coach said then.
A few days later, Huggins announced that Tshiebwe would be stepping away from the team. He said the star center had his support but added that he wouldn’t be back in Morgantown.
He’ll get a fresh start for Kentucky.
“What Coach Cal always preaches and what he loves is people who fight, and Oscar can bring that. It’s a great match,” Branham said. “He’ll go out on the court, and he’s just going to fight. He’s going to battle on the glass. He’s going to play hard. He’s going to dive on the floor. He’s not going to demand the ball that much on offense. He can bring a lot of things — especially at the big man spot — that Coach Cal covets.”
Fitting in at Kentucky
The addition of Tshiebwe will give Kentucky yet another formidable talent in what could be one of the most highly touted frontcourts in the country next season.
Branham noted that Tshiebwe isn’t a “great” rim-protector — he averaged 1.0 blocks per game last season and had just four blocks in 10 games as a sophomore — but he’s long (7-4 wingspan), athletic, and capable of altering shots and making defenses work around him.
He’ll also be playing with someone who should be one of the best shot-blockers in the country next season. That’s Daimion Collins, a springy, 6-9 power forward and UK’s top-ranked signee for the 2021 class. Branham thinks the two post players should complement each other well.
“You can absolutely play Daimion alongside a guy like Oscar,” he said. “Oscar is a straight ‘5.’ He’s a low-post big man. Daimion can play both the ‘4’ and the ‘5’ — he’s a great rim-protector, an elite athlete, very quick off his feet. He’s a really good rebounder. His body is still a long ways away — he’s going to need to hit the weight room and get stronger — so I actually think it bodes well for Daimion, in that sense. It puts him in that ‘4’ spot where he doesn’t have to bruise and battle as much down low.”
Branham said that would also free up Collins to play more help-side defense in the post — sliding over to block and alter shots — and give the Cats another formidable rebounder.
UK is also expected to return power forward Lance Ware, another hard-working frontcourt player who has started the past two games for the Wildcats, along with versatile forward Jacob Toppin, an intriguing long-term prospect capable of playing multiple positions. The Cats are also bringing in long, versatile 6-6 wing Bryce Hopkins, another player capable of making an impact in the paint. Keion Brooks and Isaiah Jackson are also possible returnees, though Jackson is projected as a possible first-round draft pick this year.
Whatever happens with postseason decisions, it looks like Kentucky’s frontcourt will be plenty talented next season, even if Calipari doesn’t add any more post players to his 2021-22 roster.
In the meantime, Tshiebwe will be eligible to practice with this season’s team. His size, strength and length should only help Olivier Sarr and UK’s other frontcourt players improve.
“For Sarr to go against that level of physicality in practice every day can only help him. Same for Isaiah Jackson,” Branham said. “You want that in practice. There are certain things you can’t really replicate in practice, but when you add a guy like that — who has that physicality down low — to go against those other big guys, it’s going to make both people better.”
Even though Tshiebwe comes to Kentucky with college experience and highly touted, he shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as another one-and-done transfer for the Wildcats.
He’s completely absent from ESPN’s most recent Top 100 rankings for the 2021 NBA Draft — meaning he clearly still needs to prove himself as a professional prospect — and Tshiebwe will have three seasons of playing eligibility remaining due to the NCAA granting an extra year to current players. Tshiebwe, who turned 21 years old in November, could be around a little while.
“He’s still an NBA prospect — there’s no denying that,” Branham said. “But there’s certainly a chance that he’s there more than a year. And I would have that as my expectation — that he’s going to be there at least two years. He’s still an NBA prospect — just with that size, and his motor, his mobility, his athleticism and his improving skill set.
“But yeah, he’s a guy that you would probably see there for more than one year.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2021 at 6:59 PM.
