Oh, this war of words between ESPN basketball commentator Dan Dakich and Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery is precious.

In a sports world filled with filters for public figures, here are two guys with bully pulpits who have no instincts for pulling punches. Wonderful.

Dakich called Iowa center Adam Woodbury “gutless” and “cowardly” for finger-pokes to the eyes Wisconsin players Nigel Hayes and Frank Kaminsky Tuesday night.

“That’s complete garbage,” Dakich said. “When you do that, you’re doing it on purpose to a completely defenseless player. It’s one thing if you and I go up for a rebound and I knock you or whatever, but when you’ve got the basketball, you are completely defenseless. And he’s doing it on purpose. You can say he’s not and everyone can get mad at me all you want, but he’s doing it on purpose. It needs to stop and the Big Ten office needs to discipline the kid.”

That’s pretty harsh stuff, but you when you play and coach and broadcast in the big leagues — and the Big Ten and ESPN are the big leagues — it’s part of the terrain for better or worse.

Naturally, Iowa fans went into a lather about it. But if you go to national websites that discuss the incident, a lot of people weren’t terribly impressed with what Woodbury did.

McCaffery, upon hearing of Dakich’s comments Tuesday night, wasted no time condemning Dakich’s assessment of Woodbury’s play, calling the announcer “out of line.”

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Before the night was over, Dakich tweeted that he wasn’t even a little “out of line.”

Wednesday on the Indianapolis radio show he hosts, Dakich laid into Iowa fans who sent him comments he found foolish. He also tweeted this: “Modern coaches don’t discipline players they make excuses for them.”

Wednesday evening, Dakich spoke by phone on KGYM-AM radio’s “Afternoon Players Club” program. Predictably, he didn’t back down one inch from his earlier statements, saying “You poke a guy’s eyes, I think you should take a serious look at that.

“I can’t tell you how many basketball people reached out to me and said I was absolutely right.”

Then it was McCaffery’s turn Wednesday night on his weekly radio show.

“Danny Dakich is so far out of line,” McCaffery said. “He’s just lost it on this one. He doesn’t know Adam Woodbury. And for him to say the reprehensible things he’s said about an amateur is inexcusable. It’s absolutely inexcusable that his network would allow him to say those things of things about a guy he doesn’t know.

“For him to call Adam Woodbury a coward and gutless is inexcusable. All right. And I don’t appreciate him saying anything about what I should do. He’s a TV guy. If he was a coach, he’d be coaching. I should tell him to go buy some lottery tickets. He’d have a better chance to win the lottery than to ever in any way recommend what I should do with my player or my team.”

Dakich, of course, was a head coach at Bowling Green for 10 years and an Indiana assistant coach (and interim head coach) for one.

When Gary Dolphin, the host of McCaffery’s show, called Dakich a “former Big Ten coach,” McCaffery said “Former assistant coach in the Big Ten. Let’s clear that up.”

That is what is known as a dig.

So is this:

“Next time Fran yells at a player w a red face remind him these are amateurs,” Dakich tweeted Wednesday night.

And: “Frannie Goes off on a tangent during his night time radio show and I want to “keep it going”? Lotto tix?? Huh ? Sad”

On KGYM, Dakich said “I get it. You’ve got to stand up for your player. Dakich is crazy, he’s out of line.”

“Fans can kill me all they like. Quite frankly, basketball people know.”

And it’s all a hill of beans that is good for both principals.

Dakich got a lot of national run for this, just like he did a week ago when he came down hard on Boston broadcaster Christian Fauria’s feeble attempt at a prank call to Dakich’s Indy radio show. That got Dakich a lot of kudos around the country.

McCaffery, meanwhile, got a ready-made target to deflect heat upon after Iowa absorbed an 82-50 beatdown by Wisconsin. A coach can’t lose in the public eye when he comes to the defense of his players, and a coach usually can’t lose in the public eye when he rips a broadcaster with strong opinions.

It helps turn the wrath of fans from a bad loss to a mean, nasty broadcaster who hates their team. The fact a lot of people believe Dakich is a Hawkeye-hater is hilarious in itself.

I like Dakich. There are reasons why his profile at ESPN has been elevated the last few years. He’s interesting and gives zero damns. There aren’t enough people like that in broadcasting. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says, but so what? If I only listen to or read the writing of those whose opinions I always share, what am I going to ever really learn?

This is all a tempest in a tea pot. The only drawback to it for the Hawkeyes is that officials and broadcasters may watch Woodbury closer than they have in the past. So he may want to remove the finger-poke from his bag of defensive tricks.