Oscar Tshiebwe played Santa Claus at UK's Christmas outing Sunday but there is no love between him and West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. (UK Athletics Photo)
Okay I know it is way too early to even think about NCAA Tournament pairings. However, I really hope that ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s latest projection turns out to be true. Lunardi has Kentucky as a No. 6 seed in the tourney and its first-round opponent would be No. 11 seed West Virginia.
It certainly would not be the first time a John Calipari team at UK has played West Virginia in the NCAA Tournament — remember 2010 in the Elite Eight when the Mountaineers beat the John Wall-Eric Bledsoe-DeMarcus Cousins-Patrick Patterson team. But this would be the juiciest matchup based on what has happened recently.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins and Kentucky sophomore center Oscar Tshiebwe have been involved in a verbal confrontation. It started when Huggins said Tshiebwe, who transferred midway of his sophomore season from West Virginia to UK, did not work hard enough.
Tshiebwe is averaging 16.3 points, 14.2 rebounds, 1.7 blocks, and 1.2 steals per game for UK and recently told Kyle Tucker of The Athletic that Huggins tried to “ruin” his life.
“God heard my cry for help and he said, take your things. It was a tough decision to leave. People say, ‘You are ruining your life. People say,’ If you make that decision, you have finished,'” Tshiebwe told Tucker.
“Coach (Huggins) told me he was going to ruin my life if I did that. He was going to say all these different things to the general managers of the NBA so that no one would ever want me. He said a lot of negative things about me to Coach (John) Calipari.
“He said I got caught smoking weed. He said I got caught with a lot of different women. Crazy stuff that I didn’t know.”
Wow. But it got even better with Huggins firing back at his press conference Friday when asked about Tshiebwe.
“He’s gone. I’m not going to get into any of that. the world here knows it’s not me,” Huggins said. “We played a game, the game was over, Oscar was gone, I never saw him again. I couldn’t have said anything when I didn’t. Haven’t seen him.
“He’s gone. I know what happened, everyone here knows what happened. Let’s all move on with our lives.”
What a great NCAA matchup this would be.
3 Responses
This is a terrible situation for a great kid to have to deal with! I am from eastern Kentucky with strong West Virginia family ties and have always cheered for Huggy and the Mountaineers – my mom went to college there. Second to the Wildcats of course!! As a lifelong Kentucky fan, I hope that Huggy is not involved in this because Oscar’s life has been very hard but the situation is heartbreaking regardless. I will hope for a kinder resolution and GO CATS!
I don’t believe the things that were said about Big O. I can believe that he wasn’t giving his best effort at W.V. That’s because he didn’t want to be there to begin with. He was pushed into going there and was miserable from day one. I think Huggins knew that. Now he is where he wanted to be in the first place. He is happy and it shows. Sure wish we had him last year. Go Big O and Go Cats!!!
I do not either JIm