Oscar Tshiebwe (Jeff Houchin/Nolan Media)
Maybe Bob Huggins is just feeling the pressure because Oscar Tshiebwe has been playing so well at Kentucky and made such an impression on national TV in his UK debut against Duke when he had 17 points and 20 rebounds.
Tshiebwe played his freshman season at West Virginia for Huggins before deciding early in his sophomore season to leave and transfer to UK.
Huggins hinted then — and so did West Virginia fans — that Tshiebwe was not a good fit and good teammate. The West Virginia coach said after a game this week that he wants players who play hard and “if they don’t like it, go ahead and transfer.”
That wasn’t all.
“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,” Huggins said.
Alleged McDonald’s All-American? Unless he’s been deleted from the records, Tshiebwe had a double-double — 12 points and 10 rebounds in 18 minutes — in the 2018 McDonald’s All-American Game. He was 5-for-7 from the field. Records indicate Tshiebwe was the highest-rated recruit Huggins had brought to West Virginia and now he is bad-mouthing him publicly.
Calipari and Huggins are friends and have been for years. Maybe that’s why Calipari didn’t want to comment a lot on what Huggins said after UK’s 77-59 win over Ohio Friday night.
“I don’t know exactly what he said or how he said it. I don’t know the context,” Calipari said. “But it’s hard to say he doesn’t work hard. He’s averaging 20 rebounds a game. He works hard. And the biggest thing he can do, and you figured it out, what? Kid can also shoot.
“We’ve got to get him a little better balanced in the post. We’ve got to give him a couple things he can do in the post. He’s still struggling a little bit.
“But in pick and rolls and rolls and throwback and throw it to him, he’s just got to get it to the rim quicker. I even told him, Just dunk the ball. Forget about a move. Just go and try to dunk it. If he blocks it, he blocks it.”
Or if a previous coach bad-mouths him, just ignore it and write it off as sour grapes from a coach who wishes he had Tshiebwe back on his team because Tshiebwe is already adored and beloved at Kentucky for his work ethic and productivity.
12 Responses
Awesome young man on and off court!Huggy lost a good one to BBN.
A coach just don’t make bad comments about his ex players. He needs device from Cal how to handle the players that transfer. You never here Cal making bad comment of all the players that transfer under his belt. He always tell them best of luck.
I was disappointed in Coach Huggins comment/response. First of all, he should have said nothing at all. But, to say he was an "alleged" five star was childish and churlish. Of course, he works hard; check out how much he swears.
I had to laugh at Jack Pilgrim’s article where he said our players "scoffed" at what Coach Huggins said. I bet if you interviewed all of the players, not a single one would even know how to use scoff.
He was a lazy player at WVU of course he is going to work hard at Kentucky he doesn’t have a choice. If he played hard as he is now he would had been adored. He wanted out and was lazy playing for WVU we don’t need players that don’t want to be here. Lot of truth in what Huggs said. Goes for football too, get the hell out if you don’t want to serve your 4yrs. Wonder what our military would be like if all could just transfer out to different branches or back into civilian life. Every one in life must work or suffer to get a higher result. Kids are quitters more today then ever.
This guy is a talented ballplayer, hard worker, and seems like a nice kid. Disgruntled coaches making foolish statements because they don’t know how, or just fail to utilize a certain talent is nothing new. They talk that smack to one another all the time. Hops and Suds Huggy just spoke his frustration out openly due to hangover
I’m not going to bad mouth Huggy Bear. He did it for me!
I agree with Cal, I think you have the context wrong. Huggins never said he didn’t work hard, nor did he question his work ethic. He said he transferred because we were making him do things that were hard, with just a little investigating I was able to find out that what Huggins was referring to was, O had things that he wanted to do and Huggins wanted him with the team, as a matter of fact if you look back at interviews when O was there, Huggins time and again says Oscar is the hardest worker he’s ever coached, when he’s there. As far as the alleged McDonald’s AA comment, he wasn’t saying he wasn’t one, he was saying it in the context that McD’s AA’s should be the team leaders!! But that wouldn’t get people to click your “story’ though would it!! I’ve been friends with Cal and Huggins both for many years and I can assure you for a fact they’ve already spoken about this and Cal listened to the interview and he had no problem understanding what Huggins said!!
Thanks Seth. Just sharing what was said with my interpretation of it and Oscar has also talked a few times about how he felt he had restrictions on his game at West Virginia. Not doubting what you said but was hard to tell that reading what Huggins said
Anyone who thinks Huggins made a mistake here is mistaken themselves. Oscar obviously made a decision that allowed himself more exposure. No one can blame him, no one can even say it was a bad decision. Kentucky is a bigger stage than WVU. But it absolutely was the easy way out. More exposure and he didn’t have to share the floor with another high caliber big man. And that is a show of poor work ethic, albeit a sensible one.
Not sure I would call that poor work ethic if he made a move that got him more exposure and more playing time. Sounds to me like he just made a mistake when he went to West Virginia to start with
The problem was Derek Culvar out played him. He got butt hurt and transferred!!
Well, whatever the reason, he sure has flourished at UK. Guessing West Virginia would not mind his 20 rebounds per game