History! Oscar Tshiebwe is UK’s First Unanimous NPOY
LEXINGTON, Ky. – In more than 100 years as a program, the Kentucky men’s basketball team had never had a unanimous national player of the year. The wait is now over. Forward Oscar Tshiebwe was awarded the Wooden Award on SportsCenter on Tuesday to make a sweep of all of the major nationally recognized honors.
The Wooden award was the sixth of the NCAA-recognized electors for national player of the year. In addition to tonight’s announcement as the Wooden Award winner, he collected the top honor from The Sporting News, the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the Associated Press , the United States Basketball Writers Association and the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.
Since 1977 when all six began being awarded in every season, 28 players have swept the honors. Tshiebwe is the second player coached by John Calipari to earn that distinction, also joining Marcus Camby of UMass in 1996. In addition to becoming the first player in program history to achieve the feat, he is the first player in Southeastern Conference history to win all six awards in the same season.
Nearly 1,000 voters chose Tshiebwe based on standards set forth by Coach Wooden and the Wooden Award Steering Committee. Voters took into consideration a player’s entire season of play and must also have proven to their universities that they are also making progress toward graduation and maintaining at least a cumulative 2.0 grade-point average.
Kentucky’s Anthony Davis is the only winner in program history. He claimed the honor in 2012 after helping lead Kentucky to its eighth national championship in program history.
Tshiebwe not only averaged a double-double but did so with a considerable margin — averaging a team-best 17.4 points and a nation-leading 15.1 rebounds per game. He is the first Division I player who averaged at least 15.0 points and at least 15.0 rebounds per game since Drake’s Lewis Lloyd and Alcorn State’s Larry Smith each did during the 1979-80 season, and the first major-conference player who averaged at least 16.0 points and at least 15.0 rebounds for a season since Bill Walton at UCLA in 1972-73. He became the first Wildcat to do it since Bob Burrow tallied 19.1 points and 17.7 rebounds per game in 1954-55.
In addition to his offensive and rebounding prowess, on the defensive end Tshiebwe was the only major conference player who averaged at least 1.6 blocked shots and 1.6 steals per game during the regular season. He also became only the third player in program history to amass at least 500 rebounds in a season. Tshiebwe finished the year with 515 boards.
A consensus All-American, Tshiebwe corralled at least 10 boards in all but two games this season and finished the season with 21 straight games with double-digit rebounds. That’s a record for the Wildcats dating back to the 1967-68 season with complete game-by-game rebounding records. Dan Issel had two stretches of 12 such games. It’s also the longest stretch by any SEC player since at least 1996- 97. It’s also the longest streak in one season by any Division I player since Rokas Gustys of Hofstra had 23 straight in 2016.
Tshiebwe was elite on the glass from the very beginning of the season. He set new records for the Champions Classic and UK debut with 20 boards vs. Duke in the season opener, nearly tied the Rupp Arena record with 20 rebounds in his first home game, and then shattered that Rupp record with 28 boards vs. Western Kentucky. That easily surpassed Shaquille O’Neal’s previous mark of 21. It’s worth noting Tshiebwe did that primarily against the tallest player in college basketball, Jamarion Sharp, who stands at 7-foot-5. With 20 boards the following game against Missouri, his 48 boards tied for the most over a two-game span by any Division I player over the last 25 seasons (according to ESPN Stats & Info).
He concluded the season with 16 straight double-doubles, the longest streak since complete game-by-game rebounding records were kept dating back to 1969 for the Wildcats. He totaled 28 double-doubles this season which is a new UK single-season record.
Tshiebwe ended the season becoming only the second Wildcat since 1978-79 to finish the season leading the team in points per game (17.4), rebounds per game (15.1), steals per game (1.8), blocks per game (1.6) and field-goal percentage with a minimum of 100 attempts (60.6%). Davis was the other to achieve the feat.
At the conclusion of the season, Tshiebwe was responsible for 37.8% of all of UK’s rebounds. Taking away team rebounds, that number jumped to 41.2%.
A complete list of the postseason honors Tshiebwe has won in 2021-22:
- Wooden Award
- Naismith Player of the Year
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award
- USBWA Oscar Robertson Trophy
- Associated Press Player of the Year
- NABC National Player of the Year
- NABC Pete Newell Big Man of the Year
- NCAA Consensus All-America First Team
- Wooden Award All-America Team
- USBWA First-Team All-America
- NABC First-Team All-America
- Associated Press First-Team All-America
- Sporting News First-Team All-America
- Wooden Award All-America Team
- NABC All-District 20 First Team
- Southeastern Conference Player of the Year (coaches/media)
- All-SEC First Team (coaches/media)
- All-SEC Defensive Team (coaches)
- USBWA District IV Player of the Year
- USBWA All-District IV team
- CBS Sports National Player of the Year
- USA Today National Player of the Year
- USA Today First-Team All-American
- The Athletic’s National Player of the Year
- Sports Illustrated First-Team All-American
- The Field of 68 National Player of the Year
- The Field of 68 First-Team All-America
- College Hoops Today National Player of the Year
- USA Today SEC Player of the Year
- USA Today First-Team All-SEC unanimous selection
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