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The Charles Barkley-Billy Packer Feud Continues: Sir Charles Calls Criticism “Asinine”

If basketball analysts taking shots at one another is your thing (and really, why wouldn’t it be?), then you’ll be happy to hear that Charles Barkley is still more than happy to share his thoughts on Billy Packer’s criticism of his qualifications to analyze the NCAA Tournament (Packer, of course, was all too willing to help the feud along himself).

This morning, Barkley appeared on WFAN to talk about the tournament and his role in presenting it, and of course, his beef with Packer came up eventually. Barkley needed no prodding before saying, “Billy Packer really pissed me off,” and that he thought it was “asinine” to say he didn’t know college basketball:

“Am I gonna know every player in college basketball? No I’m not. Am I gonna know everything about where these schools are? No…[but] I can look at the teams, compare the teams, and give an honest assessment of who I think is going to win. And I thought it was really unfair of him to say we’re not gonna know anything about college basketball.”

He wasn’t done just yet:

“When I look at a basketball game, I actually feel like I know what’s going on, and [I'll] always know more about basketball than Billy Packer.”

Host Craig Carton brought up another key issue (and perhaps something Packer didn’t fully realize in his initial criticism): Barkley and Kenny Smith won’t actually be calling the games. They’ll be studio analysts, like they are for the NBA. It won’t be critical for Barkley to know every player’s name, etc.

Of course, maybe Packer was just looking for any excuse to be cranky. Although, in fairness to him, it didn’t sound like anything he initially said to “piss [Barkley] off” was even all that bad. But we’re not going to complain about an angry, quotable Charles Barkley.

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