Tshiebwe Wins Third Weekly Award With Double-Double at Kansas

Freshman big man Oscar Thsiebwe continues to shine for WVU this season, winning his third Big 12 newcomer of the week award this week.

In WVU’s loss to Kansas on Saturday, Tshiebwe scored 17 points and grabbed 17 rebounds, already his sixth double-double on the season. Tshiebwe’s other newcomer of the week awards came on Nov. 18 and Dec. 2. With teammate Miles McBride winning it last week, West Virginia has won the Big 12 newcomer of the week four times in the season’s first nine weeks.

At Kansas, Tshiebwe already scored 15 points and had 10 rebounds at halftime. At 6-foot-9, 258 lbs. Tshiebwe used his superior athleticism to maneuver around Kansas’s bigger and slower Udoka Azubuike. In the second half, however, Tshiebwe only scored two points and had seven rebounds.

“The beautiful thing about Oscar is, Oscar’s Oscar, he doesn’t try to be anybody else,” Bob Huggins said after the Kansas game. “He’s really good at what he does and you don’t have to worry about him going out and dribbling it between his legs and losing it or jacking up threes like some guys in his situation would do. Oscar knows who he is, he’s happy with who he is and he’s pretty damn good at who he is.”

Tshiebwe leads the Mountaineers in scoring with 12.2 points per game and is second in rebounding at 9.4. Tshiebwe is third in the Big 12 in total rebounds (122) and leads the conference in offensive rebounding (56). He is third in the nation with 4.3 offensive rebounds per game.