Oscar Tshiebwe makes another case for National Player of the Year award

While he can’t speak for the rest of his teammates, Oscar Tshiebwe can confidently say he gave it his all on Saturday afternoon.

The Kentucky big man played a hell of a game in the Wildcats’ tightly-contested 75-73 loss to Arkansas down in Bud Walton Arena. Tshiebwe tied his career-high in points with 30 on an efficient 13-21 shooting clip. And in typical Big O fashion, he hauled in 18 rebounds to add to his ridiculous stat line that also included two assists, three blocks, and one steal.

With his efforts, Tshiebwe became the first Wildcat since Dan Issel all the way back in 1970 to record at least 30 points and 18 rebounds in an SEC road game, according to Corey Price. He hit a couple of mid-range jumpers, but the majority of his production came right at the rim as he bullied his way through every Razorback that dared get in his path. There wasn’t a thing the Arkansas frontcourt to do to slow him down in his season-high-tying 39 minutes of action.

He was the National Player of the Year in nearly every facet.

“After I saw the start of the game, I said we’re throwing it into Oscar every single time we can,” UK head coach John Calipari said postgame. “That’s what I said to them. If you’re timid and don’t want to do stuff, throw it to him. Let him go, and that’s what we did.”

Oscar Tshiebwe is the first @KentuckyMBB player to have at least 30 points and 18 rebounds in an SEC road game since Dan Issel at Ole Miss on February 7th, 1970 (53 points, 19 rebounds)

— Corey Price (@coreyp08) February 26, 2022

And yet, Tshiebwe’s efforts weren’t enough in the end. Kentucky shot just 37.8 percent from the floor outside of shots taken by the 6-foot-9 center. Davion Minz failed to score a single point in 19 minutes of action, Jacob Toppin was a shell of what he’s shown the last few outings, Kellan Grady didn’t make his first shot until the closing minutes, and on and on. At times, it felt like Tshiebwe was the only one of his teammates prepared to fight — and thank goodness he did.

“We should always be ready. When you play a team like this, you gotta be ready. You gotta be ready,” Tshiebwe said postgame. “The beginning of the game we really struggled a bit but the second half we tried to come back and it was a tough game. But we still lost by a couple points. But if we could start a game how we finish I think it could be a little bit easy.”

Arkansas knew exactly what it was getting into with Tshiebwe, too, but still couldn’t manage to slow him down. Every opposing team knows what he brings to the table and does well. However, that doesn’t mean you can stop it from happening. In most instances, you can’t.

“That dude. He’s crazy down there,” Arkansas guard JD Notae, who scored 30 points in the win, said of Tshiebwe postgame. “I ain’t gonna lie. I don’t know what to say about him but he did his thing.”

“It’s tough because there’s no way to really scout for someone like that,” Arkansas’ Stanley Umude added of Tshiebwe. “You just gotta get in the game and find out how to take care of it. But he’s real big and strong so you just gotta box him out.”

With all that on their mind, Arkansas eventually succumbed to its inevitable fate. Head coach Eric Musselman started the game by trapping and double-teaming Tshiebwe, which he quickly broke down through easy backdoor cut passes. Eventually, the Razorbacks decided to defend him one-on-one and let Tshiebwe beat them — which he did with relative ease.

Arkansas couldn’t stop Tshiebwe in any regard, so it elected to go with the scheme that prevented his teammates from popping open for shots. The Razorbacks let him go off. As a result, Kentucky shot just 4-15 from beyond the arc and struggled to find consistent offense outside of Tshiebwe. Arkansas essentially dared someone else to win the game for Kentucky, which ultimately worked in its favor.

“Monster. We double-teamed him to start the game and Coach Calipari, his staff, the players, they were ready for it. They burned us,” Coach Musselman said of Tshiebwe postgame. The Arkansas head coach went on to praise Tshiebwe throughout his press conference, calling him the “best big we have coached against in establishing post position in the paint.” In reality, there was only so much the Razorbacks could do and the staff knew that coming in.

Heading back to Lexington, the loss surely stings for the team as a whole, and especially for Tshiebwe given his impressive performance. But he absolutely boosted his case for National Player of the Year in the process. Saturday might have been his best individual outing of the entire season, which is impressive looking up and down his game-by-game box scores.

Tshiebwe is up to 16.9 points and 15.3 rebounds per game this season on 59.7 percent shooting. He’s registered a double-double in 11 consecutive games and 23 on the year. Arkansas literally stopped trying to keep him from beating them. The rising fan-favorite continues to make statements as the country’s best individual player.