John Calipari addresses his squabble with Mark Stoops. ‘I said the wrong thing.’

Seeking to defuse a situation that has grown out of control in recent days, Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari seemed to take the blame late Saturday night while addressing his ongoing squabble with UK football coach Mark Stoops.

Calipari spoke briefly to BBN Tonight’s Keith Farmer about the situation.

“I said the wrong thing. Mark and I will be fine,” he said. “We’ll get back and talk about it. I’m not real smart, and sometimes it doesn’t come out the right way. That’s my Italian in me. But we’ll be fine.”

Calipari spoke after Kentucky’s 118-56 victory over Carleton University in the third exhibition game of their summer trip to the Bahamas. During a meeting with reporters earlier in the week, Calipari renewed his call for the university to build a new basketball facility, a subject that has been a continuous talking point for him throughout the summer.

The UK coach, as he’s done in the past, pointed to recent investments in facilities for other athletics teams on campus. This time, he went a step further than he has in previous calls, pulling the football team into the discussion.

“The reason is, this is a basketball school,” Calipari said. “It’s always been that. Alabama is a football school. So is Georgia. I mean, they are. No disrespect to our football team. I hope they win 10 games and go to bowls. At the end of the day, that makes my job easier, and it makes the job of all of us easier. But this is a basketball school. And so we need to keep moving in that direction, and keep doing what we’re doing.”

Stoops, obviously, was not pleased with the scope of those remarks.

The Kentucky football coach, who has led UK to four consecutive bowl victories and is coming off a 10-3 season, quickly took to Twitter to fire back at his basketball counterpart.

“Basketball school? I thought we competed in the SEC? #4straightpostseasonwins,” Stoops tweeted.

And things have been boiling ever since.

The Calipari-Stoops kerfuffle has made national headlines and turned fans of the university’s two most popular sports programs against each other. On social media, at least. Basketball and football backers — as well as the many who cheer on both teams — have hit Twitter and other online outlets to take sides in the squabble.

UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart no doubt hoped everything would end Saturday afternoon, when he decided to make himself available to reporters amid the feud between his two highest-profile coaches.

Any hope of an immediate ceasefire ended before Barnhart hit the podium. Stoops spoke to the media members who assembled outside Saturday’s football practice first, and he wasn’t backing down.

“I don’t care what anybody says about their program,” Stoops said. “That’s not my business, that’s not my lane, but when you start talking about the program and others we compete against, to me, I don’t do that. I stay in my lane.

“So, that’s in defense of my players, defense of the work that we’ve done.”

Stoops took over a traditionally not-great Kentucky football program coming off a 2-10 season. He’s had winning records in five of his last six years, rejuvenating interest in UK football, which will start this season ranked No. 21 nationally in the coaches’ poll.

Stoops is one victory away from tying Paul “Bear” Bryant for the most wins by a Kentucky football coach in the program’s history.

“We all know this program wasn’t born on third base,” Stoops said Saturday. “Some may, but I can promise you this football team didn’t wake up on third base. Did a lot of work. We did a lot of work. The commitment from the Joe Crafts and so many different people, Mitch and Dr. Capilouto, so many people have done so much that you have to have the respect and appreciation for it.”

Calipari tweeted shortly after the Stoops press conference that he had tried to contact the Kentucky football coach the day he made his “basketball school” remark.

“I was told about comments Mark Stoops made in his press conference,” Calipari tweeted. “I reached out to Mark Thursday & will try again. Comparing our athletic dept. to others was my bad. I have supported Mark & the football team through good and bad. I will continue to support them & cheer them on.”

Calipari added a second tweet.

“Now I’ll do what I’ve done for 30 years: Coach my team and block out the clutter,” he said.

After Stoops spoke to reporters Saturday afternoon, Barnhart engaged in a 40-minute press conference.

The head of UK athletics clearly would like this public feud to go away.

“They’re both grown men that are iconic people in our program,” Barnhart said. “I would expect and anticipate they’ll manage that like pros. I would anticipate they get in there and have solid conversations and figure out how to go. That doesn’t mean they’ll have to have dinner every night together or whatever.”

Earlier this year, UK’s Board of Trustees approved a $30 million project that would include construction of a new indoor track facility, renovation of the Nutter Field House for the football team, and the replacement of videoboards at Kroger Field.

The UK men’s and women’s basketball programs have practiced in the Joe Craft Center since 2007. Since then, a new football training facility was constructed and Kroger Field was renovated for a total price tag of more than $150 million.

During his Bahamas interview earlier this week, Calipari said he wanted UK to build a new basketball practice facility with an adjoining museum celebrating the history of the men’s basketball program. He said he would raise funds for the new additions on his own, if necessary, but also called for the state legislature to earmark funds for the project.

A $310 million renovation to the Central Bank Center and Rupp Arena, which is owned by the city of Lexington but was financed in part by increased rent payments from UK, is nearing completion. In 2018, UK spent $4 million to upgrade the locker rooms at the Joe Craft Center.

Barnhart confirmed Saturday that a new basketball practice facility is not part of the athletics department’s current facilities plan, but he said that UK will continue looking at ways to improve the program’s current setup.

“We’ve enhanced (the basketball practice facility) over and over again,” Barnhart said. “It continues to be a state-of-the-art facility. We take really good care of it. We’ll continue to make improvements as we see fit and we’re working through that. We always do that. We always have. We’ve never stopped looking at ways we can continue to enhance our program.”

Herald-Leader staff writer Jon Hale contributed to this report.