Oscar Tshiebwe says it would be "great" to return to UK, but no decision made yet
Kentucky’s soon-to-be unanimous National Player of the Year, Oscar Tshiebwe, has been adamant since he first arrived in Lexington that he arrived at his dream school. Even when he was playing for West Virginia under recently announced Hall of Fame inductee Bob Huggins, Tshiebwe’s heart was with the Wildcats.
On Sunday afternoon, Tshiebwe’s journey of traveling from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to WVU and now to Kentucky culminated with arguably the most prestigious individual award a men’s college basketball can earn: the Naismith Trophy. The 6-foot-9 big man has now hauled in five of the six major Player of the Year awards and is expected to take home the final one when the Wooden Award makes its announcement on Tuesday.
Even though he’s said it plenty of times before, it always puts a smile on the faces of the Big Blue Nation when Tshiebwe praises the fan base and the program as a whole. Sporting a dapper royal blue suit while accepting his Naismith Trophy, he reiterated to the world just how special his time at Kentucky was throughout the 2021-22 season.
“It is like my dream come true,” Tshiebwe said Sunday on the CBS Sports Network. “Kentucky, like I said before, Kentucky was one of my favorite schools, like my dream school to play for Kentucky. To play for a Hall of Famer in Coach (John) Calipari has changed a lot for me. He has changed a lot of things basketball-wise but not just basketball. Coach Calipari is my mentor…
“And Kentucky, Big Blue Nation, I love the fans. I just love you for what you do and that’s why I’m always spreading the good vibes with everybody.”
During the same interview with the CBS Sports Network, analyst Jon Rothstein posed the multi-million dollar question to Tshiebwe that every person in the Bluegrass is dying to know the answer to: will you return for another season as a Wildcat?
His response was the furthest thing away from a hard “no”, but wasn’t a yes, either.
“That is a great question,” Tshiebwe said with a smile. “I’ve been praying about it and I know I have a big decision to make… It would be great to be in the blue again because I love the place, I love the fans, I love everything about Kentucky. But whatever decision God tells me to do that is what I’m going to do.”
From what we’ve been able to gather over the last couple of days as Tshiebwe has collected all of his postseason hardware, he clearly would like to come back to Kentucky for another season. However, that doesn’t mean he will. UK head coach John Calipari said on Saturday that Kentucky’s “got to have everything in place so he (Tshiebwe) can make the kind of decision that is the best thing for him.” — likely referring to the student visa issue that is preventing Tshiebwe from earning his full keep through name, image, and likeness deals.
ESPN‘s latest 2022 NBA mock draft still has Tshiebwe projected as a mid-second round pick, which is where most outlets view him ahead of the NBA Combine and team workouts. Theoretically, he could make more money off NIL by returning to Kentucky and playing a senior season, but the legal issues of making that happen are nothing to mess around with. That problem could potentially vanish if he went to the pro ranks and received an international work visa.
These are the issues that Tshiebwe is facing as he contemplates his future. But this weekend, Tshiebwe has made it sound like the potential a return is well within the realm of possibility.
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