WATCH: Juwan Howard appears to throw punch during postgame fracas
Off the heels of yet another bad loss for the Michigan basketball program, things got heated between Wolverines head coach Juwan Howard and Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard when an argument broke out after the final buzzer. A scrum ensued and it resulted in Howard throwing a right hand through the sea of red, navy and yellow.
Howard didn’t join the typical postgame coaches handshake right away. The announcers noted at the time that it was odd Howard refrained from approaching Gard as the game clock expired. Howard seemed to be the one upset, getting in Gard’s face, pointing and eventually having it escalate to the point of physicality on Howard’s part.
The anger seemed to begin due to a late timeout from Gard when the game was already decided. The timeout came with 15 seconds remaining while Gard kept the intensity up with a full court press while winning by double digits.
“Apparently, he didn’t like that I called a timeout to reset the 10 second call,” Gard said postgame. “Because we only had four seconds get the ball over half court, and I didn’t want to put my backups, I had all my bench guys in the game. I didn’t want to put them in that position of scrambling with only four seconds, so I took a timeout, they got us a new 10 seconds to help them get organized, to get the ball in, and he did not like that when he came through the the handshake line.”
Michael Coen of the Detroit Free Press tweeted that Howard had not apologized for anything that happened and that he was upset about the timeout call. He expressed his frustration to Gard and Howard said, “Gard touched him during the postgame line and he felt the need to defend himself,” according to the tweet. Coen also reported that Howard had not apologized to the Wisconsin head coach.
Wisconsin Athletic Director Chris McIntosh addressed the media before Gard’s opening statement saying that he’s been in touch with the B1G. “There is no room for that in our competition. It’s unfortunate what transpired. I expect the league will act swiftly. It’s difficult for me to compose myself,” McIntosh said.
Wisconsin defeated Michigan 77-63 thanks to 25 points and six rebounds from Badgers star sophomore Johnny Davis.
“I’ll leave it at that and the tape will show the rest,” Gard said.