John Calipari says Oscar Tshiebwe is "about 85 percent" healthy right now

If it seems like Oscar Tshiebwe hasn’t played up to the outrageous standards he set during his unanimous national player of the year campaign in 2021-22, there might be a good explanation as to why.

During his radio call-in show on Wednesday night, Kentucky men’s basketball head coach John Calipari gave an update on the health status of Tshiebwe, who sat out the first two games of the regular season after undergoing a minor knee procedure ahead of the preseason. The 6-foot-9 senior, who is averaging an impressive 14.2 points and 13.5 rebounds through six outings this season, is still working his way back to 100 percent.

“I think Oscar is about 85 percent right now,” Calipari said. “I know his lift is probably 15, 20 percent off — it’s gonna come back. His conditioning is probably off a little bit, he’s gonna come back.”

Tshiebwe’s field goal percentage has taken a decent dip this year compared to last. He’s down to 55.4 percent after shooting 60.6 percent in 2021-22. He’s been settling for more long jump shots than usual and has missed more than a handful of shots at the rim that came naturally in his junior year. That being said, his rebounding rate numbers are nearly identical to last season.

“You’ve seen the missing jump shots,” Calipari said of Tshiebwe’s unusual amount of close misses.

Tshiebwe isn’t the only Wildcat working his way into form, either. Starting point guard Sahvir Wheeler missed one game at the beginning of the regular season with his own knee injury. Calipari says Wheeler is closer to 100 percent than Tshiebwe, but not quite there all the way. He also mentioned that sharpshooter CJ Fredrick is still slowly coming along after not playing college basketball for nearly two years.

“I also think that Sahvir is not — he’s almost back. But I’m saying 95 percent,” Calipari said. “He still has some space to go. CJ hadn’t played in a while and now I think he’s doing some good stuff.”

Finally, Calipari made one last injury note during his show on starting two-guard Cason Wallace, who’s been dealing with a slight hand injury since the beginning of the season. The freshman star has been able to play through the issue with relative ease, but he might still need some more time before the hand is completely healed and he’s up to his full capabilities.

“(Cason’s) hand’s been injured for a while, but I believe he’ll be fine,” Calipari said.

If the injury bug is going to hit the team this year, now would be the time as opposed to later in the spring — which greatly hindered the ‘Cats heading into postseason play a season ago. Kentucky is currently 6-2 on the year with a home matchup against Yale this Saturday and plenty of off days mixed in between.

The ‘Cats will have six days in between the win over Michigan on Sunday and this weekend’s matchup against Yale, then another seven days off before traveling to Madison Square Garden for a showdown against No. 19 UCLA. Those will be valuable recovery days for everyone.

“Health-wise, we’re still not quite all the way there,” Calipari said.