NOTE: The part of the column that appears before the jump will not discuss the Juwan situation. It was written before the incident happen and was a holistic narrative that I didn't want to mess with. The brawl will be buried after the jump. 

In modern basketball, it's pretty hard to win when you do absolutely nothing from three for the entire game. It's even harder when you can't do anything from the field for a ten minute stretch of a forty minute game. It's nearly impossible if you have no defensive answer for the other team's best player. All of those things happened today to Michigan basketball, and unsurprisingly, the Wolverines came up short in Madison today by a final score of 77-63. The Maize & Blue shot 16.0% from three on 25 attempts, endured a stretch of 9.5 minutes in the second half where just one field goal went down, and allowed Johnny Davis to post 25 points, scoring at ease. Not a winning recipe. 

The first half was a visually distressing segment that saw both teams be ice cold from beyond the arc. In lieu of efficient three point shooting, both teams decided to focus their offense in the paint early on, with the first twenty four points being scored in the paint. It was not until nearly ten minutes into the contest that the first points came outside of it, a two-point jumper that put Wisconsin up 14-12. Michigan started hot offensively, feeding Dickinson in the post, but then the offense dried up over a 2/12 stretch that spanned much of the middle of the first half. With 7:06 to go, it was 21-16 Wisconsin and Michigan had five turnovers to just one forced. 

Play continued along at this pace, with both teams concentrating inside, though the Badgers began to mix in the dreaded mid-range jumper against Michigan's shorter guards. The threes continued to be literally non-existent, with the first one from either team coming when there were just two minutes remaining in the first half. That was a Caleb Houstan three that trimmed the Badger lead to 27-26 Wisconsin, close to the eventual halftime margin of 31-31. At the break Michigan was 1/10 from three and Wisconsin was 0/6. Both teams were around 50% from two, with Dickinson leading Michigan at 15 points on 6/10 from the floor. The Badgers were led by Johnny Davis, Chucky Hepburn, and Tyler Wahl, each scoring in high single figures. 

Hunter was the lone bright spot on offense in the first half [David Wilcomes]

Michigan came out hot out of the break, allowing a Wisconsin score on the opening possession but then going on a quick 7-0 run that forced a timeout from Greg Gard, featuring a Dickinson thunderdunk, an Eli Brooks transition three, and then a steal setting up a Brooks layup bucket. 38-33 Michigan. Unfortunately, it proved to be the last happy sequence for the Wolverines in the game, as the Badgers would then embark on a 23-3 run (!!!!) spanning ten minutes of action. Over that stretch, Michigan's lone bucket was an Eli Brooks jumper, and they got one other point from Moussa Diabate on a free throw. 

The story of the long Wisconsin run was a thoroughly maddening one. At one end of the floor, the Wolverines missed three pointer after three pointer, and almost all of which were wide open, completely uncontested looks. It didn't matter who took them, be it DeVante' Jones or Houstan or Brooks, they all clanged off the iron. Juwan Howard schemed open looks with ease and the shots just didn't fall, much like last weekend's game against Ohio State. On the other end of the floor, Wisconsin let Johnny Davis turn it on, at one point scoring 11 of the team's last 13 points during a sequence that stretched the Badger lead from 43-39 to 56-41. Eli Brooks was toasted repeatedly, and no other players provided much of an answer either. Davis showcased NBA talent and with Diabate in foul trouble, Michigan was hung out to dry without an NBA-caliber wing defender. 

By the time the run was over, so was the game, for all intents and purposes. Once the lead was stretched up to 15, it stayed in that range for the remainder of the contest, occasionally stretching up towards 17, and sometimes narrowing to 10, but never again competitive. A few more Michigan threes fell, but the damage was done. Wisconsin made a few threes in this period too, to finally break their schneid. The final seconds ran off the clock, and Wisconsin had won it 77-63. 

Michigan didn't have Franz to guard Johnny Davis this year [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

I don't think we learned anything about the Wolverines today that we didn't already know. We knew they struggled shooting the three, and were prone to games where nothing drops. That happened today. We knew they struggle against athletic wings who can drive past Houstan and shoot over Brooks. That happened today. It's a loss that would have been a lot closer if Michigan shot its season average (would've been a two point loss instead of fifteen), but the Davis matchup was probably going to do the Wolverines in regardless. 

The good news is that this was not a win Michigan needed. They wanted to win one this week, and they got that one in Iowa City on Thursday night. They now sit 8-7 and would like to go 3-2 over the final five, four of which are at home. Two big ones are coming up this week against Rutgers and Illinois at Crisler. Absolutely have to win one to keep pace in the bubble chase, and winning both would do wonders to solidify the tourney case. The Rutgers game is on Wednesday night at 7:00 PM EST. It is scheduled to be on BTN. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: The Brawl]

So, after the game concluded, this happened: 

Juwan Howard throws a punch. pic.twitter.com/HiC3y7yKvG

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) February 20, 2022

Yeah. 

The incident that spawned this mess was a timeout taken by Wisconsin coach Greg Gard with fifteen seconds left. Wisconsin's bench scrubs had botched the preceding possession, resulting in a steal and a quick layup by DeVante' Jones. That trimmed the score to 76-61. The charitable take (and perhaps most rational one) is that Gard wanted to use that timeout to instill fundamentals into his seldom-used players after a clunky sequence. The take that probably permeated the Michigan sideline is that Gard took the timeout to prolong a game that he was already winning solidly.

It is true that taking a timeout in a blowout game that only has fifteen seconds left generally is considered to be what baseball players would call "bush league". That said, even if it was done to be an asshole move prolonging Michigan's painful loss (which I don't believe it was), that reaction from the Michigan sideline is not appropriate, unless something was said by Gard during the start of the altercation that we are not aware of. 

If you sincerely believe Gard took the timeout to disrespect Michigan's players and rub it in (which again, I don't think was the case), I have no problem saying "hey that wasn't cool, dude" when you shake hands. Defending the players is the job of the coach. But it can't last more than 15-30 seconds and it can't get physical. Throwing hands with the other team's coaching staff is not defending the players, and it does nothing to help your team. The job of the coach is to manage personalities, draw up strategy, make decisions, defend your players, and especially at the college level, be a leader and mature figure in the room. Starting a brawl is not leadership, any more than it was not leadership when Woody Hayes decked Charlie Bauman in 1978. You do not want your coach to be Sonny Corleone when the situation gets heated. 

Welp [MG Campredon]

Now we stew on what happens next. A suspension of some length is coming, and Warde Manuel will have a decision. I don't have a take on what that decision should be because I think we ought to take a day or two to let things simmer down, hear the explanations, and let things go from there. Between the Mark Turgeon incident in the BTT last year and now this, it's not a sustainable situation. Things have to change, either who the coach of Michigan is or the coach's behavior. Coaches can change (think of Harbaugh before and after he decided that taking 15 yard penalties for going crazy was bad for the team), but a public commitment to change feels like a prerequisite to Howard staying on. 

Regardless of what happens, it makes the remainder of this Michigan Basketball season interesting, but also disappointing. The team has played better as of late, and now we have to spend time talking about this and not the players. That's the greatest disservice of all committed by Howard today, not that the fight looks bad on TV.