Kentucky forward Oscar Tshiebwe (34) and Providence forward Clifton Moore (21) battle for a rebound during the first half of a first-round NCAA Tournament game Friday in Greensboro, N.C.
Kentucky forward Oscar Tshiebwe (34) and Providence forward Clifton Moore (21) battle for a rebound during the first half of a first-round NCAA Tournament game Friday in Greensboro, N.C.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Kentucky’s star center and the 2021 Naismith National Player of the Year, Oscar Tshiebwe, offers a daunting and imposing challenge for the Kansas State men Sunday afternoon.
Tshiebwe leads the country in rebounds with 13.5 boards per game and he just came off a 25-rebound performance versus Providence in the opening round of the tournament. Those 25 were the most in Kentucky’s storied NCAA Tournament history and the most by any team in a NCAA Tournament game since 1977.
The 6-foot-9, 260-pound senior offers a unique challenge to the slighter K-State bigs, one that head coach Jerome Tang is more than familiar with.
“I didn’t have to look at Oscar on film. We recruited him really hard (at Baylor) when he was coming out of high school, then watched him play for two years and competed against him at West Virginia,” Tang said. “So I’ve seen it up close and personal. He does have that "it" (factor). ... We will try to make it difficult for him, but guys like that do what they do.”
While K-State can match Tshiebwe’s height, his bulk is a whole other story. He outweighs every single K-State contributor on the roster by at least 30 pounds, and for Nae’Qwan Tomlin and David N’Guessan, K-State’s two main big men, it’s closer to 40 and 50 pounds.
“You can’t wrestle with Oscar, right?,” Tang said. “You’re going to lose that. We don’t have anybody on our team that can go into a physical wrestling match with him, so we’re going to have to use our speed and our quickness to make it difficult for him, and then we’re going to have to gang rebound.”
K-State players, including senior forward Keyontae Johnson, also acknowledged the need for everyone to contribute on the rebounding front to try and match Tshiebwe’s production.
“It’s going to be a team effort,” Johnson said. “We know he gives them a lot of second-chance points, so we just have to limit their offensive rebounds, box him out, find him when they get shots up. He is going to get his no matter what. That’s what he does. ... We all will come together and have a solution for it.”
While K-State will lean into their speed and quickness, Kentucky hopes that Tshiebwe, who also leads the team in scoring, field-goal percentage and blocks, experience and physical might can overpower a less experienced K-State front court.
“You’re going to have to go out and play these guys,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari said. “But the other side of it is that they’ve got to play us too. So we are coming at you, and they do a great job of trapping the post and creating opportunities to steal balls and be disruptive. The good news is the season that you play is to prepare you for these moments.”
The two teams tip-off Sunday at 1:40 p.m. at Greensboro Coliseum. The game will be broadcast on CBS.
