The journalist who called LSU women's
basketball players "dirty debutantes" in a column last week has just issued an apology ... admitting, "I have failed miserably in my choice of words." Ben Bolch wrote the controversial piece for the
Los Angeles Times last Friday ... and it was almost immediately met with backlash. Critics slammed the way he compared the UCLA women's basketball team to "milk and cookies," while calling the Tigers' players "Louisiana hot sauce" -- insisting it was both racist and misogynistic. From the East coast to the West coast, LSU seems to be a target, Kim Mulkey is fine with trash talk, but she feels like the LA Times Ben Bolch crossed the line with vilifying her Tiger team in a preview piece of LSU and UCLA. pic.twitter.com/3vJLSNQTVR In fact, LSU coach Kim Mulkey and her star player, Hailey Van Lith , were so offended by the article, they both used portions of their meetings with media members over the weekend to rail against Bolch. The reporter clearly heard the criticism ... because on Monday afternoon, he issued a lengthy mea culpa. In his statement -- which he posted to his X page -- Bolch acknowledged his words were "not appropriate" and were "deeply offensive." "It was not my intent to be hurtful," he said, adding his employer did not require him to write the note, "but I now understand that I terribly missed the mark." He concluded his message by writing, "I am deeply sorry." For the L.A. Times' part, they swapped out portions of Bolch's original article ... writing in an editor's note, "The original version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards. It has been edited to remove language that was inappropriate and offensive." LSU -- which beat the Bruins 78-69 on Saturday -- is slated to play next against Iowa later Monday evening.