MORGANTOWN — The back-and-forth saga between Bob Huggins and former WVU forward Oscar Tshiebwe hit its peak Friday, when the now-Kentucky star opened up more on his transfer to the Wildcats and then had to clarify some damaging allegations toward the WVU coach.
In a story published by The Athletic, Tshiebwe admitted he had wanted to transfer at the end of his freshman year and alleged Huggins, “was going to ruin my life,” if he did leave and that Huggins would tell lies to Calipari about Tshiebwe getting caught smoking marijuana, as well as speak unkindly to NBA general managers in order to hurt Tshiebwe’s draft stock.
Huggins responded Friday, during a Zoom call with local media.
“I’m not going to get into, you know, everybody here knows that’s not me,” he said. “We played a game (against Northeastern on Dec. 29, 2020), the game was over, Oscar left and I never saw him again. I couldn’t possibly have said anything when I didn’t see him. He left.”
Hours after the story had been published, Tshiebwe reached out to the author to clarify his statement.
Kyle Tucker posted this on Twitter:
“Oscar reached out to clarify this was not a direct conversation with Huggins, rather that he was told by people around him someone at WVU was saying these things,” Tucker tweeted. “Oscar says the only direct comment from Huggins to him was, ‘You’re ruining your life.’ ”
As to the people around Tshiebwe who were telling him these things, Huggins referred to them as “outside influences” last January.
“It was 100% outside influences,” Huggins said of Tshiebwe’s reason for transferring. “I think it’s the world we live in. It’s better to steal than it is to work and earn things. It’s take the easy way out. I think there were some people involved who saw where they could benefit and maybe profit and work very diligently at trying to get him out.”
WVU announced Tshiebwe was leaving the program for personal reasons on Jan. 1. Nine days later, Tshiebwe announced on Twitter he had committed to Kentucky.
The 6-foot-9 forward came to WVU as only the second McDonald’s All-American to sign with the Mountaineers as a freshman.
He played in 42 career games and averaged 10.3 points and 8.8 rebounds per game with WVU. Tshiebwe is averaging 16.3 points and leads the country with 14.4 rebounds per game this season at Kentucky.
In a Zoom interview last April, Tshiebwe explained his reason for transferring by simply saying he was no longer happy.
“I feel like I was not happy anymore and everything was not good,” Tshiebwe said. “I was not laughing. I was not enjoying my time anymore.
“Sometimes you choose a place and you get there and it’s not working. It’s not like you don’t like the people, don’t like the place. It’s just you don’t feel like you’ve got to keep going over there.”
Huggins added his own twist to the story last month, when he took an apparent shot at Tshiebwe after WVU’s win against Elon in the Charleston Classic.
“We lost an alleged McDonald’s All-American, because he didn’t like the fact that we were making him do things that were hard,” Huggins said.
Tshiebwe initially responded to that with a sort of no comment.
“I cannot say anything about Bob Huggins. He was a good coach,” Tshiebwe said. “He coached me, did everything for me, tried to help me, but I have no comment I can say about that.”
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