Kentucky staff has had to 'simplify, dumb it down' for players on offense

The Kentucky Wildcats had yet another game where they offense faced plenty of hardships, but this one against Missouri was different. Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance entered the starting lineup for Kentucky. Instead of coming into game five minutes in, Mark Pope decided to start the two in hopes of his team combating the recent slow starts. It didn't do much, as Kentucky spent much of the first segment figuring each other out, which led to a brutal rest of the half, and of course, a brutal rest of the game.

Just how bad was Kentucky's offense? In the span of the entire first half, Kentucky went 13 minutes without a field goal, including three different four-minute droughts. From the 14:39 mark and on in the first half, the Wildcats were playing from behind. It was ugly, as Missouri couldn't find any offense either. It was a rock fight from then on with it essentially being a game of runs, and just when Kentucky looked to pull away late, a brutal collapse headlined by offensive issues led by a 5-point loss. The Wildcats were up eight with 4:37 left, then the Tigers went on a 15-2 run to close the game and steal a road win. Scoring droughts haunted the Wildcats all game.

Kentucky has had glaring offensive issues for much of this season, and after getting their first two power conference wins, the Wildcats have now had back-to-back embarrassing losses, with one common thread being issues on offense. A big part the struggles is Kentucky's inability to create offense unless it's in transition. Mark Pope talked after the game about the issues, but says that all of his teams have had the identity of a great half-court offense. This team has struggled so bad moving the ball in that setting, Pope says the Kentucky staff has had to 'simplify everything, dumb it down' on offense for the players.

"Our pace in the half court has been like the manifestation, the DNA of who we are on my teams, and it's incredibly frustrating that we're not finding that right now. That's why we're trying to simplify everything, dumb it down. Dumb it down so it's just incredibly simple, so we can just at least execute with some pace and some decision making. We're not there yet. Clearly"

Pope then talked about more of what he frustrates him most with Kentucky's offense, the lack of pace, and shared that until the team executes that, they won't be very good: "I'm really frustrated with our pace and our movement. I'm just really frustrated," Pope said. "We're emphasizing every day about sprinting to screen and it is like we're in molasses out there, and we're trying to simplify and dumb things down. But man, we are just I'm disappointed with the pace, and I'm disappointed with our willingness to get to a second side, and with our physicality ducking in. And when we do that, when we turn the corner on some of those things, we will be good, but we're not going to be good until on the offensive side until we find some pace. We're just not. When you don't have any pace, everything's easy (for the defense). Ball screen defense is easy, screen aways are easy, flow action is easy when you don't have any pace, and we don't have any pace right now."

Kentucky continues to look like a team that has no idea what they're doing once they get in half-court offense. Their only offense has been from transition, and Pope is right. if they want to improve, the Wildcats are going to have to find pace on offense, because that has hurt them very badly this season, and now have their worst start to SEC play in 20 years.