LEXINGTON, Ky. — Oscar Tshiebwe wore two noteworthy things Tuesday at Kentucky’s basketball media day: a sleeve on his right knee and the wide smile of a man who does not seem too concerned about his recent injury. In fact, the returning national player of the year said he “absolutely” expects to be ready to play in the Wildcats’ season opener on Nov. 7 against Howard.
“To be honest, I don’t think I will miss no games,” Tshiebwe said. “Probably the exhibition games, because it’s not really necessary. But I don’t think I will miss no (regular-season) games.”
Tshiebwe is coming off one of the great rebounding seasons in modern college basketball history and won every major award after averaging 17.4 points and 15.1 rebounds. He was a unanimous first-team preseason All-American in The Athletic’s recent voting. He is often referred to as “a machine,” but he required repairs on Oct. 13: a minor procedure on that knee after experiencing some pain and swelling in it. He participated in Kentucky’s pro day — and performed well — on Oct. 9, then the staff shut him down.
“Coaches say, ‘We gotta get it checked.’ After we check, they say, ‘It needs to be done.’ It was God’s plan,” Tshiebwe said Tuesday.
His return to the court will be up to the team’s trainer.
“I’m depending on them to tell me I’m ready to go,” Tshiebwe said. “I’m going to tell them how I feel every single day and just keep moving. It’s feeling better. We keep doing rehab. It’s feeling great. I don’t worry about it. God has already told me, ‘I’m going to heal you.’ So now we just follow the process and make sure I’m good, 100 percent healthy, and be ready for the rest of the season.”
Coach John Calipari, who last week said that Tshiebwe is “not human,” and was already champing at the bit to rejoin the team, reiterated Tuesday the timeline is still unclear and his preference is to err on the side of caution.
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“He’s moving pretty good. He’s moving around,” Calipari said. “Gotta stay off his feet. The kid will stand and sign autographs, take pictures. Well, he’s gotta stay off his feet. When he trains, it may swell a little bit, but it’ll go away. For the time being, that’s what it is. But he’s telling me, ‘I feel really good. My leg feels good. I don’t have the same pain that was there.’ He says it wasn’t much (before) but it’s nothing now. My thing is, we’re not going to hold him back, but you’re not going to push him forward.”
Tshiebwe admitted Tuesday that the pain was significant and the swelling was bad enough he couldn’t bend his knee. And still, he said, you should’ve seen him “hooping” at pro day, right before the shutdown and procedure. His game has evolved, he and Calipari agree, and he can’t wait to show that off to a wider audience — all in pursuit of Kentucky’s ninth national championship, his stated mission for this season.
“I’m a warrior,” he said. “Unless my wheel falls off, I won’t stop. At the pro day, I was good. I tell Coach the next day, ‘Let me go.’ Coach said, ‘No, Oscar, we gotta take care of this first. So I got it taken care of.”
Calipari said that in some ways, it’s been helpful for the Wildcats’ other big men to practice without Tshiebwe there cleaning the glass and finishing everything around the rim.
“You put Oscar in, it makes it a little bit different,” the coach said. “But what will happen is, where they’re expecting him to rebound, they’re now having to go get balls, which is a good thing. But we’re better with him.”
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(Photo: Jordan Prather / USA Today)
