SU believes the 5-game suspension of Juwan Howard at Michigan is appropriate and a reasonable outcome. He was actually lucky as he had a prior incident with Maryland coach Mark Turgeon in the Big Ten Tournament last season where he was tossed from the game for threatening Turgeon. Key points for SU:
- NCAA coaches need to set an example for the players. And you can’t put them in harm’s way defending the coach in a situation that he started. Two Michigan players (and one Wisconsin player) were each suspended one game for throwing punches.
- Michigan was pressing full court in the last minute of the game down 17 points with at least 2 starters still in the game. Wisconsin had cleared its bench. Clearly, Wisconsin coach Gard was annoyed and called the timeout with 15 seconds left because of that. He said he wanted to give his team a full 10 seconds to get the ball past half court but he called the timeout to piss off Howard. But that’s fair.
- Juwan Howard over-reacted to that slight given that he was pressing in the last minute. And he was wrong to hold back in the handshake line. SU says be a man and say what you want to say first in line as all coaches do – win or lose.
- Gard grabbed Howard and Juwan just does not like that. It set him off.
- SU was surprised that Gard only received a $10,000 fine and no suspension – for perhaps one game – for the assistant coach who charged forward in the scrum. But clearly the Big Ten wanted to send a message that the instigator – Howard – is going to be punished the most to set an example.
Bottom line is that Howard could have been fired over this, or at least suspended through the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAAs (which is a long shot for this year’s team which just cannot shoot it from the outside). He put his freshmen and sophomores in a bad situation having to defend the coach and risk their careers. Hopefully, Howard will learn from this. SU predicts it will only hasten his departure to the NBA as he is already a hot candidate for NBA head coaching positions which are always plentiful every off-season. His son Jett is going to be a freshman next year and assuming he stays 2 seasons, well, that may be it.
It was a bad look, a bad day for college hoops. You just can’t have it.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
I can’t help but think your reaction would be different if your diploma had another university on it. Howard has had multiple incidents of questionable behavior. His record is disappointing and his time at Michigan will be short. I doubt any NBA team would be thinking about him as a serious candidate.
The age of the Bobby Knights of the world being lauded as a wonderful coach are over.
Suspending Howard for only 5 games and allowing him back for the Big10 tournament is a terrible look. It shouts ratings and money over honor and integrity loud and clear. An unnecessary stain on a great university.
If the game was out of hand he should not have been pressing. The fact that he was trying to imply there was equal blame was laughable at best. I don’t really follow Michigan basketball all that closely but I’m pretty sure that a short term exit is coming for Howard. They will probably make it look like it is his choice but I can’t see a major program standing for overly aggressive antics by their head coach. What’s next – is he going to challenge Mike Krzy.. Krezesh… Ksheshe.. umm Coach K to a duel?
There are more serious issues out there like the Ukraine, China and their eye on Taiwan, hate crimes and that lying dog named Donald Trump.
Move on from this. How about the underachieving Knicks, the disappointing drama driven Nets, the dismal status of the NY Giants and of course this stretch of having
not won a Championship in New York the longest since the early 20th century. All these are such “positive” topics to focus on. 😦