Oscar Tshiebwe "rattled", played off the floor in lopsided loss to Alabama

Oscar Tshiebwe, the reigning national player of the year, went out and had his worst game as a Kentucky Wildcat on Saturday afternoon. The 6-foot-9 senior came into Coleman Coliseum averaging 16.8 points and 13.8 rebounds per game but left the arena with just four points and six rebounds, turning the ball over four times, as well. While he did deal with some late foul trouble during his 23 minutes played, that’s hardly the reason for his poor performance.

Not even three minutes into Kentucky’s 78-52 blowout loss to Alabama, Tshiebwe was relegated to the bench in favor of Daimion Collins, who had played a grand total of 36 minutes since the start of December. The Crimson Tide opened the scoring with four straight buckets, all of them coming at the rim and with Tshiebwe looking lost on defense. Alabama made it a point from the opening tip to attack Kentucky’s best player — and it worked to perfection.

“Part of guarding Tshiebwe too was we decided to attack him early in ball screens,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said postgame. “I don’t think he’s very good guarding ball screens, we got behind him three times right out of the gate.”

The culprit of Tshiebwe’s rough start to the day was Alabama sophomore Charles Bediako, a lanky seven-footer who has given him troubles in the past. Oats put Tshiebwe in pick-and-roll action against Bediako and let the Bama guards go to work. Head coach John Calipari had no choice but to search for different options before the first media timeout could hit. He looked to be scrambling for answers to a question that the staff should have known was coming.

Tshiebwe would eventually return to the floor after spending roughly four minutes on the bench, but his confidence appeared to be shot from there. He missed a handful of shots at the rim that are typically automatic. Alabama as a whole, not just Bediako, had his number. On several occasions, the Crimson Tide brought triple or quadruple teams to defend Tshiebwe, who struggles to find his playmaking touch from that position. He didn’t know how to respond to what Alabama was throwing at him on either end of the floor.

At the half, Tshiebwe had zero points on 0-4 shooting in just 10 minutes played and was a -13 during his time on the hardwood. He only had one foul, too. Alabama simply worked the national player of the year off the court. Tshiebwe scored just one bucket all game long on seven attempts and finished with a team-worst -25 in the box score.

“He was fading away on some of the stuff and that gave Bediako a chance to block some shots instead of going through him,” Calipari said of Tshiebwe postgame. “And this kid has bothered him in the past — he’s seven-foot, he’s long. I thought they collapsed and he needed to kick out but we got rattled. He got rattled. We got a bunch of guys who got rattled in the game.”

That shouldn’t happen though. There is little excuse for not finding ways to execute with a dominant player who has been on the roster since Jan. 2021. How do Kentucky and its best player continue to look so rattled on big stages? Shouldn’t there be at least some signs of progression (or at least an adjustment) at this point in the season? It appears Calipari is still wondering that himself.

“A really good player looked like he could not play,” he said. “What is that?”

You tell us, Coach.