What began as a compliment for Johni Broome ended in Charles Barkley getting hilariously mocked by Clark Kellogg and Kenny Smith.
As top-seeded Auburn prepared to tip off its matchup with Alabama State in round one of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Barkley had some high praise for Broome. If Broome leads Auburn to a championship, Barkley thinks the 6’ 10” forward will eclipse him as the greatest player in school history.
“In high school you were terrible…He was an overweight point guard!” – Kenny Smith and Clark Kellogg talking about Charles Barkley like he wasn’t sitting right next to them pic.twitter.com/PUT6yIK43r
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 20, 2025
“He is the best undersized power forward in Auburn history that I’ve seen,” Smith said in an attempt at needling Barkley, an undersized power forward from Auburn.
As Barkley said Broome is “better than me in college” without hesitation, Smith was quick to temper the level of accomplishment that is.
“I told you, you got good in the pros,” Smith said. “In high school you were terrible. In college you were just good.”
Kellogg briefly defended Barkley by saying “he wasn’t terrible,” but Smith was quick to note the Basketball Hall-of-Famer “was an overweight point guard in high school!”
“Underneath all those extra lbs you could see talent,” Kellogg added as a kinda sorta compliment for Barkley.
And as Barkley just sat there listening to Kellogg and Smith argue about how bad and overweight he was in high school, enough was eventually enough.
“Do y’all have HR around here? I’m an overweight, undersized…y’all be using words that think I don’t accept bullying,” Barkley said with a chuckle. “Call HR over here somebody.”
Obviously, HR’s services won’t be needed here. It’s not like Kellogg or Smith pulled a Bruce Pearl and used a term much worse than overweight or undersized. And if there’s one media member who can handle being made fun of on live TV, it’s Barkley, who’s used to exchanging zingers with Shaquille O’Neal.
