Nate Oats apologizes for shot at John Calipari

Nate Oats and Buffalo learned the hard way not to poke the bear.

Ahead of the Bulls’ Round of 32 clash with the Kentucky Wildcats, Oats had an interesting choice of words for John Calipari.

“Calipari’s been whining about no experience — young, young, young,” Oats said. “Well, we don’t have that problem. We got some veteran guys.”

To be fair, Oats was right about Buffalo being loaded with veterans that were hungry for this win. They also got a little too cocky about their matchup with the young Cats, who were clearly fired up and brought their A game in a 20-point win over the Bulls.

After the game, Oats said he apologized to Calipari for the comments prior to the game.

“I apologized to him before the game,” Oats said. “I used the word ‘whining.’ That’s a bad word choice of him talking about their youth all year. I don’t know why I chose that word. Big Blue Nation certainly let me know about it, don’t want to let them mad, they’re tweeting all day long. I apologized to him. He said he didn’t take it the wrong way. I’ve got a ton of respect for him. We had a good talk before the game.”

Hamidou Diallo, who had arguably the best game of his career with 22 points, eight rebounds and two blocks, didn’t say if those comments motivated UK (they did), but he did admit the Cats were out to keep proving the doubters wrong.

“We just try to come out and try to prove everybody wrong, and that’s what we did today. And can’t feel better about this one.”

Oh, and Megan got in on the fun:

Zing!