Michigan men’s basketball head coach Juwan Howard threw a punch during postgame handshakes after his team’s game against Wisconsin on Sunday.
Gard grabbed Howard with his left hand to stop the Michigan coach from moving to the next person to shake hands with, which seemed to anger Howard.
Michigan lost to Wisconsin 77-63, and as the two teams shook hands at the close of the game, Wisconsin’s head coach, Greg Gard, appeared to grab Howard after it appeared that Howard was slow to shake his hand.
In a video of the scuffle, Gard seems to grab Howard when he doesn’t offer a handshake, and the two appear to have a heated exchange.
Players and coaches for each team begin to step in to separate the head coaches when Howard squeezes his way back into the center of the crowd and throws a punch, which appears to connect with the head of Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft.
Players, coaches and others on the court become entangled in a scrum in a scene reminiscent of the famous brawl between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers at the Palace of Auburn Hills, near Detroit, in 2004, which became known as “the Malice in the Palace.”
Howard said at a news conference that he made a comment to Gard that he “would remember that,” referring to the timeout Gard took in the final seconds of the game.
“And that’s what ended up happened. That’s what escalated.”
Asked what, in his view, had happened, Gard also referred to Howard’s having been upset by the timeout.
“He did not like that when he came through the handshake line, so I’ll leave it at that,” Gard said.
