Photo by: Brian Persinger / WVU Photograph
Touted Tshiebwe Working Hard To Get Better
October 23, 2019 08:00 AM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – There is a growing perception out there from Weirton to Welch, Martinsburg to Matewan and all points in between that West Virginia University freshman forward Oscar Tshiebwe flew into Morgantown wearing a red cape and a blue suit with a red S on the front.
Like a giant eraser, the Big O is just going to come in here and wipe away all of those bad memories from last season. He's the guy who is going to help make Mountaineer Basketball Great Again!
Tshiebwe's prep credentials certainly rival some of the best recruits to ever sign at WVU, going all the way back to a guy named Jerry West (more on him later).
I've listened to some people talk about how great Oscar is going be for West Virginia without them even knowing how to correctly pronounce his last name (it's SHEEB-way, by the way). That's the world in which we live, for sure, but it's also a world his coach, Bob Huggins, has little time to which to devote his attention.
"I think the most important thing is he's never thought that and we've never thought that," Huggins said last week. "Oscar is a very level-headed kid, and I think, if anything, (the attention) has made him hungry to be better because he knows he's behind in a lot of areas. His footwork is not very good, but that's because the guy has really only played a couple of years of basketball."
It's true. The first time Oscar Tshiebwe picked up a basketball was just five years ago in 2014 when he came to the realization that he was becoming too tall to continue playing soccer – his first love. Oscar's brother encouraged him to take up the sport and soon he grew to love it too.
"I was not interested in basketball because soccer is more important in Africa," Tshiebwe, who hails from the Democratic Republic of The Congo, said last week. "I wanted to stay in soccer, but he pushed me and pushed me and I ended up loving basketball."
It was basketball that brought Tshiebwe to the United States, first to Kennedy Christian Catholic in nearby Hermitage, Pennsylvania, where he led the Golden Eagles to a 27-3 record and a Class 6A state championship, and now to West Virginia University.
This year's Preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year is the first-ever McDonald's All-American boys basketball player from Western Pennsylvania and just the second to enroll at WVU immediately after high school – New York City forward Chris Brooks was the first 33 years ago, although Lima, Ohio, guard Greg Simpson later transferred to West Virginia after beginning his college career at Ohio State.
When you dig deeper into West Virginia's long and storied basketball history, there are really about a half-dozen or so players who rival Tshiebwe's impressive prep reputation.
Six-nine forward Mark Workman was probably the first when the Charleston native came to WVU in 1949 with tremendous fanfare.
Fellow Capital City guard Hot Rod Hundley began his college career at NC State but ended up at WVU in 1954 where he led the Mountaineers to three Southern Conference championships in 1955, 1956 and 1957. Hundley handed the baton to West Virginia University's basketball standard bearer, Jerry West, who passed it to All-American Rod Thorn.
Weirton guard Ron "Fritz" Williams was a name known from coast to coast by college basketball recruiters when he came to WVU in 1964 as our Jackie Robinson. It was through Fritz that West Virginia was able to land All-American prep guard Wil Robinson from nearby Uniontown four years later.
Two decades later, Gale Catlett used assistant coach Ron Brown to help pry away high-flying New York City forward Chris Brooks from all of those Big East schools to come to West Virginia in 1986.
All seven enjoyed considerable success at WVU, although not immediately.
Workman scored just 69 points in his first eight varsity games – 30 of those coming against Davis & Elkins and Ohio Wesleyan – before he finally got his feet on the ground.
Hundley had a whopping four points in his first West Virginia appearance against Waynesburg College on Dec. 1, 1954. Three days later, an aspiring young Pittsburgh magazine writer named Myron Cope drove across town to watch Hundley play against Carnegie Tech and left impressed with Hundley's showmanship, but not necessarily with his shooting and overall basketball skills.
The man who later became the logo for the NBA scored nine points on 4-of-10 shooting in his WVU debut against college basketball powerhouse VMI on Dec. 3, 1957 at the recently razed WVU Field House.
Rod Thorn, who state legislators with nothing better to do once proclaimed as a "natural resource," made just five of his 15 field goal attempts in a two-point home victory over William & Mary in his first Mountaineer game on Dec. 3, 1960.
Later that season, Thorn failed to score in a Southern Conference Tournament loss to William & Mary and was so discouraged with his performance that he briefly dropped out of school and considered transferring because he felt it was impossible to live up to what West had done before him.
At least that's what he believed impatient Mountaineer fans expected of him.
Fortunately for WVU, Thorn reconsidered and returned to Morgantown to lead the Mountaineers to a pair of Southern Conference championships in 1962 and 1963.
Williams, despite averaging more than 30 points per game for one of the best freshman teams in the country in 1965, was so nervous in his varsity debut against VMI in the old Charleston Civic Center on Dec. 1, 1966 that he missed 17 of his 22 shot attempts.
His next game Williams dropped 30 on George Washington and could have averaged that for the season had he played for the coach who recruited him to WVU – George King.
Wil Robinson's first varsity game against second-ranked Kentucky at Memorial Coliseum resulted in a 106-87 blowout loss to the Wildcats.
And Brooks, who was supposed to leap tall buildings in a single bound, scored 11 points and grabbed eight rebounds in a nondescript 78-66 victory over equally nondescript Northeast Missouri State in Laie, Hawaii, in his college basketball christening. A week later, Brooks teased us with 14 points and 10 rebounds (including an unforgettable block at the rim when Terp center Brian Williams tried to slam one home in transition) during a 75-49 blowout victory over Maryland at the WVU Coliseum.
Now, hit the fast-forward button 33 years to today and the first thing that immediately catches your eye with the 6-9, 258-pound Tshiebwe is the chiseled shoulders and sculpted arms that look like he could be a model for a Joe Weider magazine advertisement.
Then you see him gracefully run up and down the floor like a gazelle and your mind quickly drifts to a moment in the not-too-distant future when Jordan McCabe rifles a bullet pass to him for a breakaway dunk.
Or, to another moment when Oscar and teammate Derek Culver are grabbing every rebound in sight and controlling the glass the way those old dominant Huggins teams at Cincinnati used to do.
It's likely going to happen, but it might not happen right away on Nov. 8 when West Virginia opens its season against Akron, or on Nov. 15 in Pittsburgh when the Mountaineers play Pitt.
It might not happen when West Virginia flies to Riviera Maya, Mexico, to play in the Cancun Challenge. It may take even longer than that, so let's give Oscar enough space and room to grow and develop. Trust his climb, to borrow a phrase from football coach Neal Brown.
He's got an infectious personality that has already won over his teammates, and some of it was on display during the 20 minutes or so that he spent with media members last week.
"The experience here has been so good," Tshiebwe said. "Everybody already knows who I am. When I'm on campus people come running to me, 'Oscar, Oscar we can't wait to watch you play.' It's been nice and I'm enjoying it. People ask me, 'Oscar, what are you going to do this year?' I tell them, 'The only thing I'm doing is working and trying to help this team be the best we can be.'"
Tshiebwe's best attribute is not what he can do on the basketball court, but rather his open mind to getting better on the basketball court, which is becoming harder and harder to find in players these days.
"The one thing about Oscar, he's coachable and he's willing to put the work in," assistant coach Erik Martin said. "There are going to be growing pains. It happens with everybody. Devin Ebanks went through growing pains and Devin was probably the most talented big we've had since I've been here."
"He's got a lot to learn, but the great thing about him is he wants to learn," Huggins added. "He wants to get better. He's being coached by us. He's being coached by his teammates and a lot of guys coming in, particularly guys with a big rep like he has, would say, 'Hey man, I've got it.' He doesn't. He listens. He's been great."
When Huggins has had these types of players in the past – raw and talented athletes willing to listen and willing learn – the results have almost always been off the charts.
"I had preseason national players of the year, but it don't count until the season is over with," Huggins explained. "You don't get that Wooden Award or Oscar Robertson Award unless you prove you can do it throughout a season.
"(Being named Preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year) is nice for Oscar, but other than that it's just another day at work," Huggins added.
For Martin, that means spending more time before each practice with Oscar working on those post-up moves that he didn't need to use in high school.
"In high school, Oscar was the biggest, strongest guy on the floor so whenever he wanted to get two feet from the basket he got two feet from the basket," Martin explained. "What I've tried to relay to him is, 'Oscar, every team we play is going to have three or four guys your size or bigger so you're going to need to figure out how to get a go-to move and create angles.' Sometimes he's not going to be able to just shoot over people."
"I've completely changed my game from high school level to college since I've been here. High school was not really like competition for me, but here I've got to match up with D.C. (Culver) and Logan (Routt) all the time and it's not easy to score on them," Tshiebwe admitted. "I have to work hard to get better to learn how to finish against somebody big and good.
"But I'm getting better at everything," he concluded.
Which is really the whole point of college, isn't it?
Like a giant eraser, the Big O is just going to come in here and wipe away all of those bad memories from last season. He's the guy who is going to help make Mountaineer Basketball Great Again!
Tshiebwe's prep credentials certainly rival some of the best recruits to ever sign at WVU, going all the way back to a guy named Jerry West (more on him later).
I've listened to some people talk about how great Oscar is going be for West Virginia without them even knowing how to correctly pronounce his last name (it's SHEEB-way, by the way). That's the world in which we live, for sure, but it's also a world his coach, Bob Huggins, has little time to which to devote his attention.
"I think the most important thing is he's never thought that and we've never thought that," Huggins said last week. "Oscar is a very level-headed kid, and I think, if anything, (the attention) has made him hungry to be better because he knows he's behind in a lot of areas. His footwork is not very good, but that's because the guy has really only played a couple of years of basketball."
It's true. The first time Oscar Tshiebwe picked up a basketball was just five years ago in 2014 when he came to the realization that he was becoming too tall to continue playing soccer – his first love. Oscar's brother encouraged him to take up the sport and soon he grew to love it too.
"I was not interested in basketball because soccer is more important in Africa," Tshiebwe, who hails from the Democratic Republic of The Congo, said last week. "I wanted to stay in soccer, but he pushed me and pushed me and I ended up loving basketball."
It was basketball that brought Tshiebwe to the United States, first to Kennedy Christian Catholic in nearby Hermitage, Pennsylvania, where he led the Golden Eagles to a 27-3 record and a Class 6A state championship, and now to West Virginia University. This year's Preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year is the first-ever McDonald's All-American boys basketball player from Western Pennsylvania and just the second to enroll at WVU immediately after high school – New York City forward Chris Brooks was the first 33 years ago, although Lima, Ohio, guard Greg Simpson later transferred to West Virginia after beginning his college career at Ohio State.
When you dig deeper into West Virginia's long and storied basketball history, there are really about a half-dozen or so players who rival Tshiebwe's impressive prep reputation.
Six-nine forward Mark Workman was probably the first when the Charleston native came to WVU in 1949 with tremendous fanfare.
Fellow Capital City guard Hot Rod Hundley began his college career at NC State but ended up at WVU in 1954 where he led the Mountaineers to three Southern Conference championships in 1955, 1956 and 1957. Hundley handed the baton to West Virginia University's basketball standard bearer, Jerry West, who passed it to All-American Rod Thorn.
Weirton guard Ron "Fritz" Williams was a name known from coast to coast by college basketball recruiters when he came to WVU in 1964 as our Jackie Robinson. It was through Fritz that West Virginia was able to land All-American prep guard Wil Robinson from nearby Uniontown four years later.
Two decades later, Gale Catlett used assistant coach Ron Brown to help pry away high-flying New York City forward Chris Brooks from all of those Big East schools to come to West Virginia in 1986.
All seven enjoyed considerable success at WVU, although not immediately.
Workman scored just 69 points in his first eight varsity games – 30 of those coming against Davis & Elkins and Ohio Wesleyan – before he finally got his feet on the ground.
Hundley had a whopping four points in his first West Virginia appearance against Waynesburg College on Dec. 1, 1954. Three days later, an aspiring young Pittsburgh magazine writer named Myron Cope drove across town to watch Hundley play against Carnegie Tech and left impressed with Hundley's showmanship, but not necessarily with his shooting and overall basketball skills.
The man who later became the logo for the NBA scored nine points on 4-of-10 shooting in his WVU debut against college basketball powerhouse VMI on Dec. 3, 1957 at the recently razed WVU Field House.
Rod Thorn, who state legislators with nothing better to do once proclaimed as a "natural resource," made just five of his 15 field goal attempts in a two-point home victory over William & Mary in his first Mountaineer game on Dec. 3, 1960.
Later that season, Thorn failed to score in a Southern Conference Tournament loss to William & Mary and was so discouraged with his performance that he briefly dropped out of school and considered transferring because he felt it was impossible to live up to what West had done before him.
At least that's what he believed impatient Mountaineer fans expected of him.
Fortunately for WVU, Thorn reconsidered and returned to Morgantown to lead the Mountaineers to a pair of Southern Conference championships in 1962 and 1963.
Williams, despite averaging more than 30 points per game for one of the best freshman teams in the country in 1965, was so nervous in his varsity debut against VMI in the old Charleston Civic Center on Dec. 1, 1966 that he missed 17 of his 22 shot attempts.
His next game Williams dropped 30 on George Washington and could have averaged that for the season had he played for the coach who recruited him to WVU – George King.
Wil Robinson's first varsity game against second-ranked Kentucky at Memorial Coliseum resulted in a 106-87 blowout loss to the Wildcats.
And Brooks, who was supposed to leap tall buildings in a single bound, scored 11 points and grabbed eight rebounds in a nondescript 78-66 victory over equally nondescript Northeast Missouri State in Laie, Hawaii, in his college basketball christening. A week later, Brooks teased us with 14 points and 10 rebounds (including an unforgettable block at the rim when Terp center Brian Williams tried to slam one home in transition) during a 75-49 blowout victory over Maryland at the WVU Coliseum.
Now, hit the fast-forward button 33 years to today and the first thing that immediately catches your eye with the 6-9, 258-pound Tshiebwe is the chiseled shoulders and sculpted arms that look like he could be a model for a Joe Weider magazine advertisement.
Then you see him gracefully run up and down the floor like a gazelle and your mind quickly drifts to a moment in the not-too-distant future when Jordan McCabe rifles a bullet pass to him for a breakaway dunk.
Or, to another moment when Oscar and teammate Derek Culver are grabbing every rebound in sight and controlling the glass the way those old dominant Huggins teams at Cincinnati used to do.
It's likely going to happen, but it might not happen right away on Nov. 8 when West Virginia opens its season against Akron, or on Nov. 15 in Pittsburgh when the Mountaineers play Pitt.
It might not happen when West Virginia flies to Riviera Maya, Mexico, to play in the Cancun Challenge. It may take even longer than that, so let's give Oscar enough space and room to grow and develop. Trust his climb, to borrow a phrase from football coach Neal Brown.
He's got an infectious personality that has already won over his teammates, and some of it was on display during the 20 minutes or so that he spent with media members last week.
"The experience here has been so good," Tshiebwe said. "Everybody already knows who I am. When I'm on campus people come running to me, 'Oscar, Oscar we can't wait to watch you play.' It's been nice and I'm enjoying it. People ask me, 'Oscar, what are you going to do this year?' I tell them, 'The only thing I'm doing is working and trying to help this team be the best we can be.'"
Tshiebwe's best attribute is not what he can do on the basketball court, but rather his open mind to getting better on the basketball court, which is becoming harder and harder to find in players these days.
"The one thing about Oscar, he's coachable and he's willing to put the work in," assistant coach Erik Martin said. "There are going to be growing pains. It happens with everybody. Devin Ebanks went through growing pains and Devin was probably the most talented big we've had since I've been here."
"He's got a lot to learn, but the great thing about him is he wants to learn," Huggins added. "He wants to get better. He's being coached by us. He's being coached by his teammates and a lot of guys coming in, particularly guys with a big rep like he has, would say, 'Hey man, I've got it.' He doesn't. He listens. He's been great."
When Huggins has had these types of players in the past – raw and talented athletes willing to listen and willing learn – the results have almost always been off the charts."I had preseason national players of the year, but it don't count until the season is over with," Huggins explained. "You don't get that Wooden Award or Oscar Robertson Award unless you prove you can do it throughout a season.
"(Being named Preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year) is nice for Oscar, but other than that it's just another day at work," Huggins added.
For Martin, that means spending more time before each practice with Oscar working on those post-up moves that he didn't need to use in high school.
"In high school, Oscar was the biggest, strongest guy on the floor so whenever he wanted to get two feet from the basket he got two feet from the basket," Martin explained. "What I've tried to relay to him is, 'Oscar, every team we play is going to have three or four guys your size or bigger so you're going to need to figure out how to get a go-to move and create angles.' Sometimes he's not going to be able to just shoot over people."
"I've completely changed my game from high school level to college since I've been here. High school was not really like competition for me, but here I've got to match up with D.C. (Culver) and Logan (Routt) all the time and it's not easy to score on them," Tshiebwe admitted. "I have to work hard to get better to learn how to finish against somebody big and good.
"But I'm getting better at everything," he concluded.
Which is really the whole point of college, isn't it?
Players Mentioned
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