Loss to UCLA Shows This Year's Flawed Kentucky Team No Sure Thing to Dominate

"Kentucky right now looks young and they look a little bit confused."

That was the assessment from ESPN's Jay Bilas of the (former?) national championship favorite late in the first half with the Wildcats trailing UCLA by 10 points. Really, though, he could have said it at any point in the 87-77 loss suffered by the No. 1 team in the country on Thursday night.

It was the complete antithesis of last year's blowout.

UCLA scored a grand total of seven points in the first half of last December's game between the two schools with the most titles in college basketball history, but the Bruins took a seven-point lead less than three minutes into this year's affair.

They never looked back.

This wasn't one of those upsets in which the underdog hangs around long enough to get hot at just the right moment to ensure a buzzer-beater. Rather, for the entire 40 minutes, it was the team that lost at home to Monmouth less than three weeks ago who looked the part of the No. 1 team in the nation.

Make no mistake about it: Kentucky played poorly in this game.

Yes, the Wildcats lost Marcus Lee to a head injury early in the first half. And Tyler Ulis (2-of-12 from the field) clearly wasn't anywhere close to 100 percent recovered from the elbow injury that kept him out of Monday's game against Illinois State.

But they settled for ill-advised mid-range shots, committed a lot of dumb fouls, got virtually nothing from super frosh Skal Labissiere and had apparently never seen a scouting report on Thomas Welsh, as the big man with the sweet shooting stroke poured in 21 points and had 11 rebounds, which were both game highs.

The Bruins played like a team that was out for blood. They won seemingly every 50-50 ball and just played with fire in their guts from the opening tip—in front of a sparse crowd, no less.

Although, the crowd certainly got loud after this ridiculous dunk in which Prince Ali broke Ulis' ankles before putting Alex Poythress on a poster.

Do you think perhaps UCLA had something to prove after last year's embarrassment?

It wouldn't be right to simply write this off as a revenge win for the Bruins, though, because they brought to light some serious flaws in a Kentucky team that was previously presumed to be the closest thing we had to a dominant squad this season.

You would think that with three guards as great as Ulis, Jamal Murray and Isaiah Briscoe, Kentucky would be the type of team that could beat you from anywhere on the floor. If those guys aren't getting to the rim, though, they aren't that effective.

Take a look at this snapshot taken during an offensive possession for Kentucky early in the first half:

Screenshot from ESPN Broadcast

If we count the semicircle at the top of the key as part of the paint, all five Bruins have at least one foot in the paint while none of the Wildcats are anywhere close to it. Steve Alford employed a modified version of Virginia's pack-line defense and practically begged Kentucky to do anything more than five feet from the hoop.

Far too often, the Wildcats didn't even work that hard for a shot, attempting 25 three-pointers in addition to what had to have been at least a dozen other shots 15 or more feet from the hoop.

This type of defense never would have worked against the 2014-15 version of Kentucky.

Not only would Devin Booker or either one of the Harrison twins have had a field day from downtown, but the big men were way too good to not get the ball in the lane pretty much whenever they wanted.

Here's the difference between 38-1 Kentucky and 7-1 Kentucky in a nutshell: Lee was the sixth-best frontcourt player on last year's roster, but the Wildcats looked completely lost without what is now their best offensive rebounder.

Granted, UCLA is one of the bigger teams in the country. Thanks in large part to 7'0" Welsh and 6'10" wing Jonah Bolden, the Bruins boast the nation's ninth-tallest roster, according to KenPom.com. Though its frontcourt isn't nearly as physically imposing as last year, there aren't too many teams in the country who can tower over Kentucky's bigs like UCLA did.

Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

But if you clicked that link, you may have noticed that upcoming Kentucky opponent Louisville is No. 11 on that list. SEC foe Vanderbilt is No. 4. And though No. 13 Duke got a putrid game from most of its guards in the Champions Classic, Marshall Plumlee and Amile Jefferson had a combined 28 points, 25 rebounds and six blocks against the Wildcats.

In other words, if Labissiere doesn't start imposing his will and playing like the projected No. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA draft, there could be quite a few more losses coming Kentucky's way.

Perhaps we're overreacting to a young team losing its first true road game of the season while trying to overcome injuries and/or foul trouble from each of its veterans. We certainly don't expect Ulis—a 42.9 percent three-point shooter last season—to shoot 26.9 percent from long range all season long, and Murray is at least starting to resemble the stud we fell in love with at the Pan Am games this summer.

According to Kyle Tucker of the Courier-Journal, John Calipari doesn't seem to be sweating the loss too much:

"I'm fine with it. We got beat, we got kicked, we move on. We've had a pretty good run. Try to get it going again."

Reparable or not, though, there were major flaws in Kentucky's game that we either didn't see or didn't want to see before Thursday night.

This season was already more wide open than any other in recent memory, but now that the Wildcats have also fallen, it's going to be a while before any team can truly be considered the favorite to win it all this year.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.