Disastrous defense condemns Kentucky basketball to SEC-opening defeat at Missouri

The sentiment that has bubbled beneath the surface for Kentucky men’s basketball this season has now risen fully above it, plain for most onlookers to see: The Cats are not ready for prime time.

UK slumped to 8-4 overall — including 1-4 against quality opponents — and now 0-1 in SEC play with a demoralizing 89-75 defeat at Missouri on Wednesday night, where most of the negative story lines of his Kentucky season so far were front and center.

John Calipari’s team took a bevy of early three-pointers with little success: The SEC’s leading three-point shooting team entering Wednesday’s game (39.9%) finished just 8-for-23 (34.8%) from distance for the game.

UK was beaten in transition early and often by Missouri, to the tune of first-year head coach Dennis Gates’ team finishing the night with a 17-8 fast-break points advantage.

The Tigers also held a healthy 33-13 advantage in bench points.

Despite a stat-stuffing performance from reigning national player of the year Oscar Tshiebwe — who contributed 23 points and 19 rebounds while shouldering a complete 40 minutes of playing time — few other Wildcats stepped up to the task on offense or defense.

This was the fourth time this season that Tshiebwe had at least 15 points and 15 rebounds in a game. He now has 34 double-doubles in 44 career games at UK, and Tshiebwe also became a career 1,000-point, 1,000-rebound player during Wednesday’s game.

Additionally, a notoriously slow-starting Kentucky team failed to fire after tip-off once again against Missouri. The Cats led for 23 seconds following their first basket of the game — a Cason Wallace three-pointer — and then never again.

Perhaps the most damning indictment of how decisive Missouri’s victory was came midway through the second half.

As the game went to a media timeout, the public address announcer at Mizzou Arena warned fans to not storm the court at the conclusion of the game. There was still more than 10 minutes to go.

The Cats faced a 21-point hole deep into the second half, the most points they’ve trailed by all season.

The 89 points allowed by Kentucky represent the most UK has allowed this season, as well as the most the Wildcats have allowed since Duke piled on 118 points in November 2018.

UK starts slow, Fredrick hurt in first half

The 12-point deficit that UK faced at the half was the largest at that point of a game for Kentucky since its blowout loss at Gonzaga more than a month ago.

Calipari stuck with the same starting quintet of Sahvir Wheeler, Cason Wallace, Chris Livingston, Lance Ware and Oscar Tshiebwe, that was used for last week’s win over Florida A&M.

Redshirt senior guard CJ Fredrick — who appeared to shake off a shooting slump with a 4-for-6 three-point shooting performance in that FAMU game — left Wednesday’s contest against Missouri in the first half after playing just four minutes with a right hand injury.

SEC Network cameras later showed Fredrick on the UK bench with his right ring finger and right pinkie finger taped together.

Initially, the SEC Network broadcast said Fredrick was cleared to return to the game for Kentucky. But UK announced on Twitter at the beginning of the second half that Fredrick was out the rest of the way.

Adou Thiero effective in rare playing time

For a while this season, Calipari repeatedly said he needed to find more playing time for Livingston, before it eventually came during the CBS Sports Classic loss to UCLA, when the freshman forward performed well and was rewarded with two consecutive starts.

More recently, Calipari has turned his attention to freshman guard Adou Thiero, sparsely used throughout nonconference play, but a player that Calipari has insisted has a big role to play on this Kentucky team and in his college basketball career.

Calipari discussed the potential downsizing of the Kentucky lineup earlier this week on his radio show, with Thiero at the “4” part of that plan along with Livingston at the “3.”

While that didn’t quite manifest itself against the Tigers, Thiero was nonetheless given his chance against Missouri to make an imprint on the game, and he did so.

Thiero was put into the game with 16:53 to go and Kentucky down 18 points, and the freshman guard from Pennsylvania made an impact.

For a brief period, Thiero was the only Wildcat with a positive plus/minus in the game, an admittedly noisy stat full of qualifiers, but nonetheless representative of the juice that Thiero brought to the game that most of the other Kentucky players lacked.

Thiero finished his SEC debut — and just his fifth collegiate game — with five points and three rebounds.

Kentucky must recover quickly for in-state rivalry

The Wildcats will hardly have any time to lick their wounds from this defeat.

Up next are the Louisville Cardinals at Rupp Arena in Lexington on New Year’s Eve, a game that will be played at the same time the Kentucky football team faces Iowa in the Music City Bowl.

The Cardinals will enter the game on a two-game losing streak, with their lone wins this season coming over Western Kentucky (No. 136 in KenPom as of Wednesday night) and Florida A&M (No. 357 in KenPom).

Next game

Louisville at No. 19 Kentucky

When: Noon Saturday

TV: CBS

Radio: WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Louisville 2-11, Kentucky 8-4

Series: Kentucky leads 37-17

Last meeting: Louisville won 62-59 on Dec. 26, 2020, at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville

This story was originally published December 28, 2022 at 9:24 PM.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-242-5257

Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription