National college hoops columnist calls out Kentucky offense

It wasn’t the night Kentucky envisioned as the Wildcats started SEC play and tried to put and up-and-down non-conference schedule behind them. They struggled mightily on offense against Missouri, and a national college basketball columnist who covered John Calipari in the past called them out in the process.

Dan Wolken, now a columnist for USA Today, didn’t hold back with his thoughts on Kentucky’s struggles on offense in the conference opener. The Wildcats struggled mightily from three-point territory to start the game, going 2-for-12 in the first half while shooting 40% from the field before halftime. Wolken made his thoughts clear on the rough performance.

“I’ve watched about 10 minutes of Missouri-Kentucky, and I see one team running a modern offense and one team running whatever the hell it is Kentucky is doing,” he tweeted during the second half of Wednesday’s SEC opener.

In a separate tweet, Wolken quipped about how Kentucky fans would react to the performance.

“I’m sure Cal getting absolutely pantsed by a first-year coach is something Big Blue Nation is going to take in stride,” Wolken said.

As if things weren’t bad enough for the Kentucky offense, the Wildcats lost one of their sharpshooters early in the first half. C.J. Fredrick left the game after he appeared to jam his finger catchinga past. He left the court during the media timeout with 7:47 to play in the half and headed to the locker room in a lot of pain with a towel around his hand. He initially returned to the bench and got his fingers taped up, but ended up getting ruled out for the game in the second half.

Wolken previously covered John Calipari at Memphis and has made his feelings clear on what this season means for Calipari’s future in Lexington. As the season got underway, he joined radio host Gary Parrish — who also covered Calipari at Memphis — and painted a bleak picture of what could happen if Kentucky’s struggles continued.

“If the narrative sets in that he’s maybe a little outdated with some of the things he’s doing, he’s washed up, he doesn’t have the same juice he had in the program, it’s going to go downhill quick,” Wolken said in November. “I think if he doesn’t — I’ll put this prediction out here right now — if they don’t get to the Elite 8 this year, I think he’s got one more year left after this and then I think it’s over.”