Associated Press Names Oscar Tshiebwe A First-Team All-American

We're seeing things be done this season that haven't been done in nearly a decade. Anthony Davis-like accomplishments, right in front of our eyes.

Oscar Tshiebwe is locking up just about every postseason award and nomination known to man. This morning, he moved into the finalist group for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year award. Hours later, he was also named a First-Team All-American by the Associated Press.

He joins Keegan Murray (Iowa), Kofi Cockburn (Illinois), Johnny Davis (Wisconsin) and Ochai Agbaji (Kansas) as the First-Team recipients. Tshiebwe is the first Wildcat to be named an AP All-American since PJ Washington was named to the third-team in 2019. The last Kentucky player to be named to the First-Team by the Associated Press was Tyler Ulis in 2016.

The AP is one of the four “major” NCAA-recognized All-America teams that the NCAA uses for its consensus All-America teams. The other three are the the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the Sporting News.

Other players under John Calipari to be named All-Americans by one of the four major organizations: John Wall (2010), DeMarcus Cousins (2010), Anthony Davis (2012), Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (2012), Julius Randle (2014), Willie Cauley-Stein (2015), Karl-Anthony Towns (2015), Ulis (2016), Jamal Murray (2016), Malik Monk (2017) and PJ Washington (2019). Some solid Cal-Era players to have your name in the same conversation with.

Oscar Tshiebwe is still trending to take home the Naismith Player of the Year award in the coming weeks, the biggest and most prestigious trophy that college basketball can award a player. If that for some reason doesn't happen, we riot.