John Calipari Calls John Buccigross a “Jagoff,” Tweets Explanation

This morning, on an otherwise Favre-filled day, ESPN’s John Buccigross chatted with Kentucky coach John Calipari on SportsCenter. Things were going fine, until, at the 1:37 mark, Buccigross brought up Calipari’s luck at Memphis. He then compounded that error by, uh, being from Pennsylvania?

⇥Buccigross: “You talk about luck and bouncing the ball, and certainly had you had that against Kansas, certainly your Memphis team would have been national champion.” ⇥Calipari: “Now why would we bring that up? That was two years ago, John. What are you trying to bring up memories of a three that goes through a rafter? And ‘Why didn’t you call a timeout?’ And ‘You should have fouled earlier.’ I thought we were going to talk about Kentucky. ⇥Buccigross: “Let’s take a 20-second timeout.” ⇥Calipari: “You must be from Western PA, John. Where are you from?” ⇥Buccigross: “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” ⇥Calipari: “OK, so you’re a jagoff. Basically, you’re a jagoff.“It’s more humorous than harmful, but probably something all parties wish hadn’t been said over the air. ESPN just aired part of the audio from the interview again, with a nod to the incident, and Sage Steele, who is co-hosting this version of SportsCenter, tweets that it was an inside joke. Calipari has also taken to Twitter to explain his statement, saying he and Buccigross “go back” and were using the “term of endearment” off the air, and warning, “Watch the haters blow this up.“

I’m personally more offended by “haters” than “jagoff.” You’re a little old for that, Cal.

(HTs to FanHouse and Buster Sports.)

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