Kennedy Catholic big man Oscar Tshiebwe is not only one of the biggest recruits in Western Pennsylvania, he’s one of the top recruits in the entire country.
Tshiebwe’s stock continues to rise as he’s displaying his skills at showcase events on the AAU circuit for the ITPS Wildcats.
Rivals lists Tshiebwe (6-foot-9, 230 pounds) as a 4-star recruit and ranks him as the 54th best prospect in the country.
Pittsburgh Sports Now caught up with this rising star and talked about his recruitment, Pitt and his recent status as a national prospect.
“This has all been great. The way I look at it is if you play good, everyone is going to know about you. I just keep practicing to hopefully get better and hopefully people will notice me.” said Tshiebwe.
Courtesy of Oscar Tshiebwe
I asked Oscar if all this attention from the media has surprised him and been more than he thought it would be?
“Yes, I am a little bit surprised by it. I know though that the better I play the more people will be contacting me and my coaches. I’m just going to keep working and trying to show people that I’m good enough to play basketball in college.”
The only thing that remains to be seen is how good can Tshiebwe get. I asked him what parts of his game will he be working on over the next year.
“Right now, I want to get better at my dribbling and also work on my jump shot and get some better post moves,” Tshiebwe said.
Western Pennsylvania doesn’t produce a ton of elite high basketball players but Jeff Capel already knew of Tshiebwe’s skill level. Capel made him and Maceo Austin the first recruits he went to visit after getting hired.
Aside from that initial visit, Capel has also been in attendance for the ITPS AAU games the last two weekends. I asked Tshiebwe his initial thoughts on Capel as a coach and a person.
“He just seems like a really good person and I think he’s going to be a really good coach at Pitt,” Tshiebwe said. “I’ve never met a coach like him before, he’s really nice and I think he’s going to bring Pitt’s program back and they’ll be good. I like him.”
Does Tshiebwe sense how much of a priority he is for Capel and Pitt?
Courtesy of Oscar Tshiebwe
“Yes, I do get the sense that he wants me but right now, I really have no idea where I’m going to go. I still have a couple of visits that I need to take. No one is going to tell me where I should go to college, I’ll be deciding that. I’m going to make a couple more visits,” said Tshiebwe. “I visited Pitt before with their old coach but Coach Capel wants me to come back for another visit. So in a couple of weeks I’m going to go visit there and talk to them again. After I make these visits then I want to make my decision before the start of my next season.”
The major schools recruiting Tshiebwe along with Pitt are Clemson, Georgetown, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Georgia Tech, Rutgers, Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia.