Morgantown, West Virginia – Oscar Tshiebwe is no longer a West Virginia Mountaineer. He left the university under shady, questionable circumstances and it would be easy for West Virginians to be pissed at him.
Having said that, he’s a young man that only wants what’s best for himself and his family. Tshiebwe came from nothing and he’s making the best of his opportunity. Objectively, he made the best decision by transferring to the University of Kentucky, a proverbial factory for producing NBA players. There’s simply no question that he will have a better chance at playing professionally at Kentucky than he would have at West Virginia.
Since leaving West Virginia, Tshiebwe has been training in preparation for practice with the Kentucky Wildcats. Although he cannot play this season, he is allowed to practice with the team and head coach John Calipari has plans for him.
“Now I told him, your job will be, ‘how do I help these guys?’” Calipari said. “Maybe with him, I take five guys and those five are playing the top seven or eight guys and we start scrimmaging that way. Even though it’s late in the season, it something I’ve thought about when we get him here.”
Kentucky is bad this season. At 4-9 and 3-3 in the SEC, Calipari’s team is on pace for the worst season in his career and the first losing season since he’s been at Kentucky. Tshiebwe will be counted on to be a major contributor on next season’s team, and he will be given the freedom to truly showcase his talents.
“I loved Oscar out of high school,” Calipari said. “We recruited him, loved his effort, his intensity, all his fight. I just said, ‘that’s what you got to bring here.’ The most important thing will be that, and you bring that and we’ll try to help in any way we can.”
In the meantime, Oscar Tshiebwe is focused and back to training hard. Although he admittedly didn’t prepare this past summer in the way that he should have, he’s learned from that and will be ready to be dominate next season at Kentucky.
Don’t write him off. Don’t hate him for making a selfish decision for himself and his family. Oscar Tshiebwe is a great kid and we should only wish him the very best.
