Oscar Tshiebwe says he puts team success over individual accolades

Few players, if any, have put up the individual statistics that Oscar Tshiebwe has put up the last two seasons at Kentucky. Even so, he said he’d give that up for a chance at winning a championship.

Following a 66-54 win for UK over No. 10 Tennessee, Tshiebwe answered a question about whether he’d be okay averaging just five rebounds, eight off his usual for the season, if it meant the Wildcats made the Final Four. He said he’d take that in a heartbeat because, to him, it’s all about the team and what they can still accomplish as a group.

“It’s not about me. It’s about the team,” Tshiebwe pointed out. “As long as we can keep winning the rest of our games? Even if I come in and don’t make a shot. If we win? I came back to school to win a championship.”

Again, Tshiebwe has been as good as any player in the country has been statistically over the last two seasons. He averaged 17.4 points and 15.1 rebounds as a junior on the way to winning National Player of the Year. Now, as a senior, Tshiebwe is averaging 15.8 points and 13 boards for UK.

Those numbers have earned Tshiebwe plenty of praise. Kentucky as a team, though, hasn’t hung their hat on anything in that time. The Wildcats did not win either the SEC’s regular season or tournament last year. They didn’t pick up a victory in their NCAA Tournament appearance either thanks to Saint Peter’s. As of now, they’re also not on pace to win the conference’s regular season this year and, before last week, were going to be scraping into March Madness if they made it at all.

At the moment, that’s what’s motivating Tshiebwe. He doesn’t want his time in Lexington to end without something to leave behind for the program rather than himself. That’s why, over the next two weeks, he and his teammates are doing their best to ramp things up to help Kentucky better compete in the postseason this March.