John Calipari Bows To The Mob, Apologizes For Calling 5-Foot-7 Kansas State Player 'Little Kid' After Loss

John Calipari referred to Kansas State's Markquis Nowell - who is five-foot-seven - as "little kid" during his postgame press conference following Kentucky's loss to the Wildcats in the NCAA Tournament.

Given that we live in the year 2023, people were offended by Coach Cal's "little kid" phrasing and, as expected, Calipari reached out to Nowell and apologized to him after some pushback on social media.

Jareem Dowling, an assistant coach for Kansas State, tweeted out the clip of Calipari calling Nowell "little kid" demanding he "put some respect" on his name.

While there is no denying that calling an adult "little kid" is a terrible choice of words, given Calipari's tone here, it's clear he didn't mean for it to come across as a slight towards Nowell.

There's a good chance that Calipari and his staff referred to Nowell as 'little guy' or 'little player' while watching film scouting Kansas State because he is by far the smallest player on the floor and the nickname stuck.

READ: KANSAS STATE COACH BURIES KENTUCKY AFTER PUNCHING TICKET TO THE SWEET 16

Instead of letting the 'story' blow over given that nobody outside of Manhattan, Kansas was talking about it, Calipari felt the need to reach out and console the senior from Harlem.

Nowell jumped on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon and shared that he had spoken with Calipari and all is good.

It was probably pretty easy for Nowell to forgive John Calipari seeing as how he absolutely cooked the Wildcats during their Round of 32 matchup. He played all 40 minutes of the game and led all scorers with 27 points to go along with nine assists.

Follow Mark Harris on Twitter @ItIsMarkHarris

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the PGA Tour, LIV Golf, and all other happenings in the world of golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.