UK Athletics Photo
Oscar Tshiebwe has been a double-double machine at Kentucky and has his 43rd career double Wednesday night with 18 points and 11 rebounds in a 71-68 win at Mississippi State.
However, what makes this win special for Tshiebwe is that he helped secure the game at the foul line.
With Kentucky leading 68-66 with 5.1 seconds to play, UK coach John Calipari had his team inbound the ball to Tshiebwe, a 71 percent free throw shooter. He missed his first shot but made the second one. Again with 3.8 seconds left and the lead 69-68, Calipari again went to Tshiebwe on the inbounds pass. This time he made both free throws.
Tshiebwe said on the SEC Network after the game that Calipari knew he works on free throws daily and had been making his free throws in recent games.
“He says, ‘Oscar, we are going to trust you,’” Tshiebwe said.
Tshiebwe, who is now five rebounds behind Rick Robey for 9th all-time in UK history, said he was not thinking about making or missing. Instead, he said he was just going to shoot the free throws.
“I had confidence in myself and I knew we needed that,” he said. “It is confidence. If you don;’t have confidence in yourself, you are not going to make it. Your mind is locked in and I am doing this to help my team. You block out all the noise.”
There was plenty of noise, too, after UK went over four minutes without scoring after seeming to have the game in hand with a 56-43 lead with 8:33 to play after an 11-0 run in 4:08 and 18-2 run in 7:34.
“This was a physical game. I knew it was going to be a battle,” Tshiebwe said. “They are good players, physical players. We came in knowing who would fight the most would win this game.”
Kentucky was without guards Sahvir Wheeler and CJ Fredrick for the second straight game. Tshiebwe actually called a brief team meeting his his hotel room Wednesday.
“We shared a Bible verse and prayed together. If we fight, we not lose. God is going to be for us and help us,” Tshiebwe told Jack Givens on the UK Radio Network postgame show.
“We have a good team. We have to keep fighting. No matter who is missing we cannot lay down. We got to come in ready to play. Today was good.”
Yes it was. Not perfect but it was so much better than the effort/passion UK had in a loss at Georgia Saturday that had ESPN bracketologist put Kentucky as one of the first four teams out of the NCAA Tournament. This win along with Texas A&M’s victory over Arkansas that gives UK another Quad 1 win should put the Cats back in the tournament field.
“Coach always said we just have to go to war. We don’t have anything to lose,” Tshiebwe, who was 7-for-13 from the field and had seven offensive rebounds, said. “We have a good team. I have confidence (in my team) and have not lose the faith. We can turn this around and make a run.”
At least they have a chance to do that now because if the Cats had lost this game, it would have been very difficult to have come back from. Instead, they won a tough, physical road game missing two players and surviving a late scoring drought.
Problem is there is no margin for error and Tennessee visits Rupp Arena Saturday in another huge game for UK.
“Sometimes I make mistakes but I have got to stay strong. This team needs me. We need each other,” Tshiebwe said.
12 Responses
Tennessee will smack them around..
I think the Tennessee game will be in single digits at the end, but I believe Tennessee should win this game.
UK needs to take more pride about winning at Rupp than it has this season, and I believe that will be a factor in UK’s favor on Saturday. Tennessee is fighting for a higher seed that it probably let slip away over the last 2 weeks, and I think that will give Tennessee a boost, as well as their desire to even the score with UK after their loss in Knoxville.
lI expect this will be a good game by both teams.
I’m going by the eye test..no analytics. Tennessee double digits all day.. I’d love to be wrong. Tennessee will be motivated similar to last year’s second game with them. But we’ll see. Sometimes you have a basketball team that you say hey we can beat anyone or be beaten by anyone. This team to me is like 70 /30 that we can be beaten by anyone not 50 /50.
Well I didn’t think they could win in Knoxville, so maybe we will be surprised again
If UK gets punched in the mouth and don’t respond accordingly. Be a long day or short one. Plachich ot however you spell that big guys name worries me. Can onyenso play him .? Hate to see Oscar get in foul trouble.
would be a huge win Professor and probably get UK off the NCAA bubble unless it collapses the next four games
i have faith the cats will take care of business Saturday against the Vols .
I sure hope so
Do not want to hit on a kid but, but why does Cal play him big minutes when he does not contribute anything to the offense or defense. he can’t score a point when needed. hasnt made but one FT all season which brings up the final 9 seconds he puts Ware in and leaves a possible scorer on bench . Collins. Who actually had a rebund or two. diverted shots and scored a put back but missed a ft and Cal benched him never to return and for defense during all games he has not played his 7 footer block machine Owensy one minute. actually his minutes for entire season was 3 TOTAL MINUTES..
WHY?. during Bahama trip Collins and him were the stand outs.
WHY. ?
As Dandy Don said
TURN OUT THE LIGHTS,,,,,,,,,,,
One more thing
Address how to stop "clock runout"
Cats had 4 clock Turn Overs. you can’t give up 4 possesions
Great to see them making game winnner FT’s
Cal trusted Oscar enough to have Reeves inbound the ball to him with 2 seconds on the shot clock for a 3 attempt. Lol
Should’ve been the exact opposite.
Also Reeve’s inbounding instead of receiving the ball late knowing a foul was coming.
Stall ball by Cal way too early again as always.
This after saying the players must play to win instead of not to lose following the Georgia loss.
Glad the players scrapped out a win despite Cal’s usual poor coaching.
KY house Bill 336
Cal’s seat has to be burning hot
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/16/lawmaker-wants-to-ban-lifetime-contracts-like-uk-gave-john-calipari/69912199007/