Wildcats react to Oscar's big night: "That’s the Oscar we’ve been waiting for"
Everyone is still buzzing about Oscar Tshiebwe‘s big night. The reigning National Player of the Year looked the part vs. Georgia, posting 37 points and 24 rebounds to lead Kentucky to the 85-71 comeback win. The 37 points are a career-high and the 24 rebounds are the second-most in Rupp Arena history behind his 28 last season vs. Western Kentucky. It was the first 30-20 game of Oscar’s career, and the fifth 35-20 game in Kentucky Basketball history, the most recent since Mike Phillips’ in February 1976. I could go on and on, but rest assured, it was Oscar’s best performance of the season by far, and it comes at a pivotal time for Kentucky.
“Sometimes I just don’t believe the things I’m doing,” Oscar admitted to reporters. “37 [points] and 24 [rebounds], that is insane. I just fight. I don’t look up, I don’t do anything, I’m just fighting.”
We’ve already covered how Oscar getting back in the gym led to last night’s breakout performance. At doctor’s orders, he took his recovery from a preseason knee surgery slowly and at John Calipari’s behest, recently rededicated himself to his old conditioning habits. It shows. Last night, he pulled Kentucky back from an eight-point halftime deficit, scoring the Cats’ first nine points in the second half. After going 4-11 from the floor in the first half, he was 8-9 in the second, emphatically dunking Kentucky to victory. Simply put, he looked like the Oscar of old.
“I’ve never seen anything like that with my own eyes”
John Calipari likened Oscar’s second-half dominance to a video game. Cason Wallace and Antonio Reeves, who didn’t play alongside Oscar last season, called it surreal.
“Man, he played like a beast today,” Reeves said. “That’s the Oscar we’ve been waiting for, for real. He just went out there and was the old Oscar, man. He was down there getting every rebound, putbacks, and dunking it. That is what we needed.”
“It was crazy,” Cason Wallace said. “I’ve never seen anything like that with my own eyes.”
“There was one time, there were like four dudes on him and he just went up and got an and-one,” Reeves said. “I was like, Jesus Christ, this man is going crazy. It just surprised me because I’ve never really seen him go crazy like that. I heard stories of him doing 20+ [rebounds] and 20 points but to see it with my own two eyes was great.”
“It was unbelievable,” Wallace echoed. “I was talking to CJ [Fredrick] during one of his free throws and I looked up and I said, ‘Dang, that’s a lot.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, it’s crazy.’ It’s unbelievable. Just feed him and let him go to work and he’s going to do his best.”
Reeves said the team knew something was brewing with Oscar when he came out sporting a fresh haircut.
“He had a little mohawk going. He had his old mohawk. The old teammates were like, ‘Aww yeah, that’s Oscar. He used to do that when he was younger.’ I was like, ‘For real?’ They said he was in his prime when he had that mohawk. I think that’s when we know he was fixing to go crazy.”
“If they crash on Oscar, just relocate”
Both Reeves and Wallace quickly learned that when Oscar locks in like that, it has a ripple effect on the offense. Defenders swarming the middle create opportunities on the perimeter, which the Cats are now in a position to capitalize on with the “Basketball Benny” three-guard lineup.
“If they crash on Oscar, just relocate and just make sure I’m open or whoever is open, to hit them,” Reeves said.
“It just brings everybody else up,” Wallace said. “It just gives us more confidence because we know we’re going to be open because he draws so much attention and we’ve just got to make plays.”
“It made it really easy on us,” Reeves said. “Just feed him the ball and he’s going to do something. Like I said, just make sure we lock in on defense and make sure we are talking to the team and make sure we’re doing what we need to on the floor. If he’s hot, we’re going to give him the ball.”
Dinner in Oscar’s room helped get the Cats on the same page
Not only has Oscar rediscovered beast mode on the court, he’s bonding with his teammates off it. A week ago, Oscar called out his teammates’ lack of fight after the loss to South Carolina, for which he later apologized. In the days that followed, the team held a players-only meeting that led to the upset of Tennessee. Last night, Oscar revealed that some of those meetings may have taken place in his room over dinner.
“We’ve got our fight back and everybody now is locked in and I’m so proud of my boys,” Oscar said. “We came together. Sometimes I invite them to my room to have dinner and just talk about everything. What do you think, what is your idea, what can we do next to help our team? So, we start liking each other. Now, we just come together and just play and have fun. We love this.”
“Just a couple of days,” Oscar said when asked when the dinners happened. “I just got in the group chat and sent a message. I encourage especially the word of God. They need to hear that, especially when you’re going through some tough times, the only thing that can help you out is the word of God. I just send them Bible verses, I send them messages. ‘Read this, listen to this. It’s going to help you.’ Now, everybody just knows how good we are and they’re not letting things in anymore. They’re fighting. It’s good.”
In 2014-15, Tyler Ulis made Devin Booker pancakes in their room at the Wildcat Lodge. What kind of food do you think Oscar serves his teammates?
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