Oscar Tshiebwe accepts AP Player of the Year: "It is everybody's dream to receive that trophy"

Oscar Tshiebwe has been named the 2022 Associated Press Men’s College Basketball Player of the Year, just the second Kentucky player in history to earn the honor.

The standout center accepted the award at the Final Four in New Orleans on Friday, just the fourth SEC player in history to do so. During the ceremony, Tshiebwe thanked God for the honor, along with his teammates and coaches at Kentucky.

“Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank God, because I feel like you cannot get without him. If I did not trust God and let him lead me in everything I do,” Tshiebwe said. “And second, I would love to thank my coaches and everybody on the staff for always believing in me and always work with me through the process. My teammates, I thank my teammates for everything, too, because I could not do it on my own. I needed somebody like my teammates to encourage, to be with me in everything we’ve done together.

“And I’m very grateful to be here. And I thank the organization for choosing me as player of the year. I’m very thankful for them too. And I’m very happy to be here. Very happy, and I’m very excited. This is one of the things, like, it is everybody’s dream to receive that trophy right there. But I’m sitting right here receiving that trophy. That makes me feel very happy and I’m really grateful for everything.”

Tshiebwe attributes his improvement throughout the season and the award itself to the adversities he’s faced in life and the work ethic he’s developed.

“I think the reason is I really went through a lot,” Tshiebwe said. “And I knew who I was because I’m a hard worker. I can work and I can show people what I can do by trusting in God. I just work harder and believe that people, God has put me in their hands to help me. 

“And I never stop fighting. I fight until the end. We ended up doing something special, never quit, never stop fighting. I always fight until the end.”

The biggest highlight of the season? Promising John Calipari he was going to average 20 rebounds per game. He fell short of that goal — he averaged 15.1 boards per contest — but he felt he proved he was the best rebounder in college basketball.

“This year, for me, to come on this team, I promised coach — I said I’m coming in, ‘I don’t worry about scoring. You can find some people who can help to score, but I’m coming here to fight for rebounds. I promise you I want to average 20 rebounds,'” Tshiebwe said. “I still can’t believe I’m getting the trophy even without averaging 20 rebounds, I promised coach.

“So he was like — rebounding was the biggest thing for me. And the coaches say, no, you can’t just do rebound. You can do a lot of different things. We spent a lot of time working on my offense. Actually turned out to be great. And I started making jump shots, attacking the rim, do a lot of different things. So that was the biggest thing for me.”

Tshiebwe finished the year averaging 17.4 points and 15.1 rebounds per contest. He posted 25 double-doubles, second-most nationally. And he also led his team in steals and blocks, being the only major conference player to average at least 1.5 blocks and 1.5 steals per game.