Nate Oats explains how Charles Bediako shut down Oscar Tshiebwe

Nate Oats watched his Alabama Crimson Tide dominate the Kentucky Wildcats to the tune of 78-52 last Saturday. There are a lot of reasons why Alabama dominated this game, but one of the biggest was Charles Bediako shutting down Oscar Tshiebwe.

After the game, Oats explained how Bediako was able to take it to Tshiebwe during the game.

“Well, his length caused Tshiebwe some problems,” Nate Oats said. “You know, Tshiebwe is tough, physical, but he’s not nearly as tall as Charles is. So, you know, Charles was able to fight his catching off, push out. When he did get it, Charles was smart, moved his feet, blocked some shots.”

Oscar Tshiebwe, like the rest of Kentucky, struggled. In the game, he only had four points and six rebounds. That’s far below his 16 points and 13.1 rebounds per game average.

“I mean, if you look, Tshiebwe was one for seven. So, he was obviously effective in challenging his shooting and shots at the rim. I mean, he doesn’t shoot anything outside of a rim shot,” Nate Oats said.

“So, I thought part of guarding Tshiebwe too was we decided to attack him early in ball screens. I don’t think he’s very good guarding ball screens. We got behind him, I think, three times right out of the gate. You know, Jaden Bradley did a great job finding Charles and they were upset. You know, we’ve seen him miss a lot of ball screen coverages in scouting them.”

Kentucky followed the loss to Alabama with a loss to South Carolina, as frustration is continuing to grow within the program. Meanwhile, Alabama is preparing for a key conference game against Arkansas.

“So, we wanted to attack him in that. When we did attack him, they pulled him out of the game and it made it a lot easier to guard him when he’s on the bench. You know, he only played less than 23 minutes tonight. So, that was certainly helpful too.”

Oscar Tshiebwe confronted teammates, John Calipari

Oscar Tshiebwe is among those frustrated with how the season is going for Kentucky. He’s voiced those issues now, looking for more passionate play and reportedly asking head coach John Calipari to try and play walk-ons instead.

“Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe told us multiple times during tonight’s postgame that he’s pleading with his teammates to fight, to show some intensity,” beat writer Jeff Drummond tweeted.

“Said that he told Calipari to put in a walk-on if he has to, just someone who is willing to fight.”