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Oscar Tshiebwe named The Sporting News National Player of the Year

Tshiebwe is officially a National Player of the Year award winner.

By Jason Marcum
Oscar Tshiebwe Isamu Haynes-Sunayama - Sea of Blue

One down and five more to go.

Kentucky Wildcats superstar forward Oscar Tshiebwe has been named The Sporting News National Player of the Year, it was announced Wednesday.

Tshiebwe joins Anthony Davis as the only Wildcats to earn the honor in the publication’s history dating back to 1943.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo native leads the 25-6 Wildcats in points per game (17.3), rebounds (15.3), steals (1.9), blocks (1.5) and field-goal percentage with a minimum of 100 attempts (60.6%). He’s the only major conference player averaging at least 1.5 blocked shots and 1.5 steals per game.

Since the 1978-79 season, only one Wildcat has led the team in those five categories (minimum 130 field-goal attempts) in a single season was Davis in 2011-12.

Tshiebwe came into the week as the heavy favorite to win several of the NPOY awards. DraftKings had him at -400 to win the John R. Wooden Award after entering the season at +5000 odds.

The other five major NPOY awards will be announced over the next month, and Tshiebwe looks poised to take home most, if not all of them.

In fact, fans can help Tshiebwe take home the Wooden Award by voting for him here.

Here is a recap of Tshiebwe’s postseason honors and awards thus far, which will only grow in the coming weeks.

  • Sporting News National Player of the Year
  • Sporting News First-Team All-America
  • Southeastern Conference Player of the Year (coaches/media)
  • All-SEC First Team (coaches/media)
  • All-SEC Defensive Team (coaches)
  • 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
  • John R. Wooden Award finalist
  • Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award Final Five
  • Naismith Defensive Player of the Year semifinalist

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