John Calipari says that Oscar Tshiebwe is only around 85% right now

When Oscar Tshiebwe announced his return to the Kentucky Wildcats this summer, all of Big Blue Nation was ecstatic about what the future could hold for the reigning National Player of the Year.

Some of that optimism slowed down prior to the season, however, as Tshiebwe underwent a minor knee surgery to help get some things cleaned up.

All the talk was that Tshiebwe would be ready for the first game against Howard... and then he wasn't. Though he did return to play Michigan State, Tshiebwe clearly isn’t all the way back to what we saw last season.

During John Calipari’s weekly radio show on Wednesday, he revealed that Tshiebwe is only back to around 85% from the knee procedure he underwent.

It is fairly obvious that Oscar is missing some of the bounce and juice we saw him play with night in and night out last season, and rightfully so if he is still trying to get back to 100% from the surgery.

Despite that fact, Tshiebwe still continues to dominate, as he’s currently averaging 14.2 points per game on 55.4% shooting while leading the nation in rebounding average at 13.5 per game. He’s also added 1.7 assists, 1.3 blocks and 1.5 steals per game.

Impressive numbers, especially considering the circumstances to start the season.

But once that knee gets back to full strength and his conditioning is up to speed, Tshiebwe will be right back to putting up numbers that put him in contention for a second-straight Player of the Year award-winning season.

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