Report: Juwan Howard receives suspension after postgame scuffle, throwing punch
Michigan head coach Juwan Howard will be suspended for the remainder of the regular season for his postgame scuffle on Sunday, according to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo. Howard appeared to have thrown a punch at a Wisconsin assistant coach after the two exchanged heated words in the handshake line.
Howard’s latest on-court debacle wasn’t his first, either, perhaps informing the length of his latest suspension. Last season, when Michigan faced Mark Turgeon’s Maryland Terrapins in the Big Ten Tournament, Howard lost his cool at Turgeon, yelling choice words across the court during a stoppage of play. When Turgeon began jawing back — then stepped towards Howard — the Michigan head coach physically pushed his way towards Turgeon, and a shoving match ensued. Assistant coaches had to hold back Howard, who was ejected from the game following a double-technical.
In the waning minutes of Wisconsin’s win over Michigan on Sunday, Gard decided not to let the clock run and take the win as is. Instead, he called timeout and tried to get his Wisconsin Badgers to continue playing hard until the final whistle. That seemed to have irked Howard, who exchanged a few words with Gard and the Wisconsin coaching staff postgame. Shortly thereafter, players got involved with the pushing and shoving; after Howard and Gard started a shoving match, Howard appeared to have punched or slapped Gard.
In his postgame interview, Gard explained what led to the fight on the sidelines. It was, in fact, the timeout — but Gard said there was reason for him to call it.
“Apparently, (Howard) didn’t like that I called a timeout to reset the 10 second call,” the Badgers coach said. “We only had four seconds to get the ball up the court and I didn’t want to put my backups in the game. I didn’t want to put them in that position of scrambling with only four seconds. So I took a timeout and it got us a new 10 seconds and helped them get organized to get the ball in. He did not like that when he came through the handshake line. I’ll leave it at that and the tape will show the rest.”
Immediately after the game, Howard did not apologize for his actions, according to local reporters.
“Juwan Howard has not apologized for anything that happened,” tweeted Michael Cohen of the Detroit Free Press. “Said he was upset about Wisconsin calling a timeout late in the game. He expressed that frustration to Greg Gard. Howard said Gard touched him during the postgame line and he felt the need to defend himself.”