Michigan basketball coach Juwan Howard threw a punch during post-game handshakes with the Wisconsin Badgers, sparking a massive brawl with the two teams.
Apparently angry about a late timeout called by the Badgers, Howard paused to have words with Badgers coach Greg Gard after the Wolverines 77-63 loss.
Juwan Howard throws a punch. pic.twitter.com/HiC3y7yKvG
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) February 20, 2022
However, it was immediately evident that those words were not well received, and a massive fight ensued.
Howard said that after the game, he felt the situation “escalated” after an opposing coach touched him.
“Well, basically, I addressed with the head coach that I will remember that because of that timeout. For someone to touch me, I think that was very uncalled for, for him to touch me as we were verbalizing and communicating with one another,” Howard told reporters. “So that’s what ended up happening. That’s what escalated it.”
Here’s Juwan Howard’s side to the story.
Added later that he felt he needed to protect himself, because Greg Gard touched him unnecessarily in the handshake line after he had gotten upset.#Badgers pic.twitter.com/hFWrEtBv1v
— Evan Flood (@Evan_Flood) February 20, 2022
Gard gave his version of events as well, saying he called the timeout to prevent his backups from having to race to get the ball over the half-court line.
“Well, apparently he didn’t like that I called a timeout to reset the 10-second call — because we only had four seconds to get the ball over half-court,” Gard told CBS.. “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 (left.) So I took a timeout. That 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. So, I’ll leave it at that and the tape will show the rest.”
