Kentucky Basketball Recruiting: More pro-UK buzz for Oscar Tshiebwe

Kentucky’s interest in—and recruitment of—Oscar Tshiebwe has moved quickly.

Kentucky coaches watched Tshiebwe during the end of the July live period, and that’s when John Calipari really started showing interest. Sunday, Tshiebwe cut his list to four, included Kentucky, and scheduled his visit to Lexington.

The five-star big man seems highly likely to commit to Kentucky if he gets his offer, and him getting an offer is likely to happen as well.

According to Kentucky Sports Radio’s Jack Pilgrim, there’s a significant chance that Tshiebwe gets his offer and then commits to Kentucky.

Sources tell KSR that there is a significant chance Tshiebwe earns that offer and ends up in Kentucky’s class of 2019. Now that an official visit is scheduled, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he commits when he gets to Lexington next month.

Rivals expert Corey Evans seems to think Tshiebwe’s recruitment is a two-horse race between West Virginia and UK. And he said the same thing that we’ve said before: Kentucky’s offer will change his recruitment drastically.

“If I were a betting man, I would place the house on Tshiebwe ending up at West Virginia or Kentucky,” Evans said in a post on Rivals. “The main caveat here is that UK has yet to offer. If they do, I would be surprised if he doesn’t commit to the Wildcats.”

Elsewhere, Tshiebwe’s travel coach, Tom Droney, spoke with CatsPause.com on Monday. Droney had an interesting tidbit on Kentucky and if Tshiebwe had a commitable offer...

“The situation with Oscar [and Kentucky] is interesting,” Droney said. “They are very, very interested, and I do believe they would take a commitment from him at any point, but they want to get him on campus first, so there’s potential for a formal offer there.”

It sounds like Kentucky knows Tshiebwe isn’t going to commit until he wraps up his visits, so they’ll wait to offer either during the visit or an in-home visit if they have one with him before then. The plan is for him to decide sometime this fall.

Tshiebwe is a four-star recruit on the 247 Sports Composite, but 247 just recently upgraded him to a five-star prospect. He’s rated the No. 10 center in the class on the composite.

Be sure to read the full CatsPause interview for more insight into the rise of Tshiebwe and his recruitment.

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