Basketball standout Debaba Tshiebwe eligible after transfer to Central Catholic, WPIAL decides

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 | 8:00 PM

Central Catholic transfer Debaba Tshiebwe, a basketball standout who arrived this summer from a private school in Ohio, is fully eligible for the regular season and playoffs this winter.

The WPIAL held an eligibility hearing Wednesday and cleared Tshiebwe, a 6-foot-6, 265-pound junior who transferred from Grand River Academy in Austinburg, Ohio. He attended classes there but played basketball for nearby Spire Institute, an independent training facility in Geneva, Ohio.

The vote granting his regular-season eligibility was 6-2, WPIAL executive director Amy Scheuneman said.

Additionally, the WPIAL decided the PIAA postseason rule that makes most transfers sit out the playoffs doesn’t apply to Tshiebwe because he didn’t play high school basketball last season.

“The Spire Institute is like a glorified AAU program,” Scheuneman said. “The school that he actually went to, Grand River, had its own high school basketball program, but he didn’t participate in that.”

Tshiebwe’s older brother, Oscar, was a basketball star at Kennedy Catholic and won a PIAA title there in 2019. He’s now a junior on Kentucky’s basketball roster after first attending West Virginia.

The brothers are from Congo.

Debaba Tshiebwe announced his first Division I basketball offer last summer from Bryant. He also intended to play football at Central Catholic this fall.

Middle school move

The PIAA bylaws cover athletes in grades 7-12, but rarely has the WPIAL held an eligibility hearing for a junior high student. In fact, Wednesday’s might have been the first.

The WPIAL ruled Seneca Valley eighth grader Zach Hill ineligible for one year in wrestling after transferring from Freedom, Scheuneman said. Freedom contested Hill’s transfer as motivated at least in part by athletics.

“Freedom had some information and they wanted to present it,” Scheuneman said. “That was looked at because the bylaws do apply to students in 7-12. Is that a normal occurrence? Absolutely not. But the bylaws apply to everybody.”

Hill can appeal to the PIAA.

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: Central Catholic, Seneca Valley