Friday, March 29

Michigan-Wisconsin Fight: Analysis of Juwan Howard-Greg Gard Spat


Aight, so you may have heard some stuff happened at the conclusion of the Michigan-Wisconsin basketball game:

Thump: Here we go here’s the definitive capture: Howard goes “I’ll remember that shit” as he tries to go by Gard, Gard then stops him to be like hey wtf.

And then the rest of it after the foul is like, everyone kinda wants to clear the court and Brad Davison keeps going “NO WE’RE SINGING VARSITY!”

MC ClapYoHandz: Adding to the Gard timeout thing, he says he was told by a ref that they had 4 seconds to get past half court but if he called timeout they’d have 10

Kind of…: Yeah, but according to Howard, the weren’t pressing, they were playing pressure defense. That’s different.

He was a high school quarterback: I’m not sure when full court man to man became “not a press”:

Honestly, the more I think about this, the more taking exception to a timeout is laughable as a bullshit “he started it” deflection. He doesn’t like Gard calling a timeout, but it happened because he’s pressing UW’s scrubs? Howard’s in the middle of a really underachieving season. He got two technicals against Iowa. One because he blanked out and picked up a live ball.

This didn’t come out of nowhere. Fuck him.

The Jerking Knees

As one would expect (or wouldn’t, whatever, who cares), it’s been met with the usual outpouring of Twitter hot takes, humorous tweets, and cautious “We’re looking into it” statements from the University of Michigan:

Green Akers: Plenty of levelheaded commentary to be sure, range of conclusions from “gotta fire him” to “suspension’s probably fine” to “I loved it, why should he be in trouble???”

And dozens of people insisting on a semantic argument about whether Howard’s motion is actually a punch or not.

The Iglesias Cut Thump dropped up above adds so much flavor. Pretty clear audio of Howard kicking things off with “I’ll remember that shit,” and Davison just living his best life, making sure there’s at least a couple Hold Backers between him and the fight at all times, and then demanding to sing alma mater towards the Michigan locker room with the exact pitch and timbre of the guy who, after a massive fight at a house party, insists on finishing the beer pong game that started the fight.

“No, bro, balls back, our shot”

“Dude the cops are coming”

“Que? why? We didn’t do anything”

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all furniture and glassware in the basement is broken

Kind of…: It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but I’ll bet money Howard didn’t know that using a timeout gets the 10-second count restarted. He took his second timeout in the first half yesterday with just over a minute to go in a dead ball situation. I also bet he didn’t realize he had already used up his use-it-or-lose-it timeout.

Beez: People on SBN sites digging in fully to the video and analyzing it frame by frame.

It’s fun for sure, but like, lol who cares? One dude threw a “punch,” nobody else did. There’s some stupid shit around the periphery, but there’s nobody else on Mount Assault that is even worth discussing.

AG: I’ve seen a few people comparing this to Woody Hayes and I’m like LOLWUT

WhiteSpeedReceiver: That’s just fun because then you can watch Ohio State fans get happy and then sad in one very quick synapse firing.

AG: That said I will be developing the Hayes-Knight-Howard Continuum Of Coach Violence to help us more easily discuss further incidents.

Beez:

  • Tier 1 Coach hitting player
  • Tier 2 Coach hitting anyone
  • Tier 3 Coach doing violent thing that doesn’t hurt anyone
  • Tier 4 Izzo or Ryan complaining at the refs

Kind of: Pretty good, but Tier 3 is too vague. John Chaney threatening John Calipari’s life doesn’t deserve to have anything else being compared to it. Can that just be Tier 3.1 by itself?

Any consequences from this?

DJ: Howard also threatened to kill Turgeon last year…after beating him. He’s going to get suspended for a good few games for this one. So are quite a couple Michigan players

He was a high school quarterback: Alan Griffith got a one game suspension for stepping on Sasha two years ago. Williams and Diabate probably shouldn’t play the rest of the regular season. One Wisconsin player I didn’t recognize will probably sit a couple games two.

I’m sure they’ll come down hard on Howard. Make him apologize publicly or something similarly stern.

AG: They will do no such thing. Manuel suggests they’re going to follow the conference’s lead, the Big Ten isn’t going to make him apologize. They’ll suspend him a game, the school will say “works for us,” the Blue Wall will cluck its collective tongue exactly twice, then they’ll go back to ignoring the team because they suck this year.

Krab and Neath are probably getting suspensions too.

Beez: Agree. And Diabate?

AG: For sure, probably Terrance Williams too, although it looks like he’s mostly trying to break it up.

Beez: It’s gonna be hard to sort out because the “don’t leave your bench” rule can’t possibly apply during the postgame.

AG: The league should probably do the work and interview as many people as they can but it also feels like a great place for them to slack off and just eyeball the video.

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Nobody involved can complain much.

Why are we so obsessed with it?

misdreavus79: Wait sites other than Michigan’s and Wisconsin’s are discussing this?

AG: Football’s over, Olympics are over, NBA’s on all-star break, and this is way more interesting to casuals than actually thinking about college hoops.

Beez: And it is. Every site but Michigan’s and Minnesota’s are discussing it and how awful Howard is. Michigan’s and Minnesota’s are taking bets about how long Gard, Krabbenhoft, and Davison are going to be suspended.

misdreavus79: Well I guess that explains why the Big Ten bends over backwards for Michigan…

Beez: I have a working theory that a lot of people like to see former pros fail. Especially Juwan Howard and Penny Hardaway, for some reason…

AG: I think it’s also related to the era of basketball they came from. Lot of, uh, certain folks who still don’t appreciate the way the game changed in the early to mid 90s.

WSR: I am not saddened to see Patrick Ewing failing. I wish it wouldn’t be at Georgetown, but I’m OK with any of the 90s Knicks or Heat players failing miserably and being forced out of basketball forever.

MNW: Do you guys care if I post this?

WSR: Only if you don’t point out that Joe Krabbenhoft has earned being slapped during his time as a player and coach. Because he absolutely has.

beez: You’re welcome to include WSR and others’ whining, as well. It certainly fits a “if you meet an asshole in the morning” position some people have re: Wisconsin basketball

Takeaways from the current basketball game?

beez: I haven’t been following UM like at all…but what happened?!? Nobody other than Dickinson panned out?

AG: They’re very young this year, and guys they counted on to shoot are really really bad at shooting. So the offense they ran last year, one-in four-out, doesn’t work if guys are just bricking all the shots Dickinson gets them.

Even losing Wagner and Livers, I think their worst drop off has been from Mike Smith to Devante Jones. He’s been a little better lately but for the reigning Sun Belt POY, he’s flat out sucked most of the year.

beez: That sounds like exactly what I assume will happen when Davis has to go against very, very good defenders.

AG: I think most nights, Davison and Wahl are fair good enough to take some pressure off him.

beez: See I’d say it’s 50/50 whether Davison is unstoppable or straight garbage from 3.

AG: If Crowl was hitting about 5% better from 3, you’d have a stew going.

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beez: So either Davison and Davis are gonna drop 50, or they’re gonna drop whatever Davis gets + 3 points. But also, Davis has not much interest in driving and passing. He just pulls up and fades away unstoppably somehow.

AG: That does happen, yeah. Hepburn doesn’t seem to be hitting a freshman wall, and will low key be the next despised Wisconsin player.

beez: Yesterday I watched him drive straight at a defender, stop, dip his head into the defender’s chest, then step back and score. Defender just stood there with arms up like…really man? You’re just gonna run into me?

Hepburn could be really good. At the very least, Wisconsin will still be able to run an offense the next few years.

AG: But then, I often look at freshman point guards and think hey, that kid’s gonna be something, and then they’re just meh. Still waiting on Joe Toussaint. In Toussaint’s case, I get it; you’re not going to be more than an afterthought on a Luka Garza team, and now Murray’s blasted off into space, AND two of the coach’s kids are on the team

beez: Good freshman/first seasons are setting expectations in a way that opens us up to disapointment for sure.

AG: Please don’t tell anyone I said nice things about an Iowa player.

The Important Stuff

MC ClapYoHandz: For real though this is the takeaway: “Juwan Howard slowly trying to fight each coach in the Big Ten let me know when he gets to Brad Underwood.”

MaximumSam: That could be a good article. Power ranking the coaches as street fighters.

Kind of…: I mean, Gard showed more scrap that I was expecting, but he’s still clearly in the “playing on Wednesday at the B1G tournament” part of the bracket. If it’s WWE-style, maybe he can have Davison appear out of nowhere and take out Woodson’s knee; otherwise I think Gard’s the 14 seed and heading home early.

BoilerUp89: Have we talked about this gem of a moment post-fight?

Thump: It’s been a long time since I saw someone hit the DX salute that hard.

chicken

Most important of all: Please name this fight.

  • 23%

    The Incident on the Isthmus

    (23 votes)

  • Four. Five%

    The Kerfuffle at the Kohl Center

    (45 votes)

  • 23%

    The Mustelidae Melee

    (23 votes)

  • 7%

    Something even wittier, which I will tell you in the comments

    (7 votes)


98 total votes

Vote Now




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