Does Howard Survive This?

Mark Few got a DUI. He could have killed someone. My cousin died in just that way. He got a 1 game suspension. The Urban saga went on for 7 years. He openly supported and employed abusers. He never received any punishments in his time there, and Zach Smith is a free man. Call me crazy, but I don't think firing even crosses Manuel's mind, nor should it. 

Turned off the game before it ended. Didn’t find out about this until I just saw it on the national news. Wow that looks really bad. The wife who knows little about basketball and no idea who Juwan Howard is says, “how does that guy not get fired for that?” Good question.

No.

Hard not seeing him fired over this. The comments regarding Gard are strange to me, especially considering Howard immediately grabbed Gard by the shirt with two hands. Both coaches seem immature in the situation. The Gard/Howard moment isn’t great for either, but also not the craziest thing ever seen between coaches. Just standard heat of the moment stuff.  But then Howard, who is in the back of the situation at this point, moves forward seemingly out of nowhere to slap the Wisconsin assistant, which completely starts the brawl. 

If I’m Manuel, I’m really struggling to find a way not to fire him before the nights over. Howard’s point of view really doesn’t matter to me. This isn’t grade school. 

I think the answer is no, he does not survive this in A2.

No.  And any suggestion he should get fired is absurd.

that’s dumb, and you’re an idiot. 

He should go, he won't be forced to.  Harbaugh would be gone, Beilien would have been gone, Howard won't be gone. 

This event was definitely good for MGoBlog traffic metrics.  Nothing has gotten me to write so many replies in one day before.  Wasted a few hours on this.  I admit I am totally biased in favor of Juwan and think he should be suspended and remain as coach.  I hope that is the outcome.  Hope you all have a good night.

Hot take:  maybe this was Juwans way of distracting from the fact that he plays a guy 90% of every game's minutes who can't even do average basketball things that he bent over backwards to get because he was "one of the best in the country", but turned out to be a a giant turd and one of the worst starters in the B1G named Caleb Houston, therein lies the rub?  Let the downvotes flow...

Juwan was not happy about the timeout. In the grand scheme, that is pointless.

Should have already been considering next steps to improve. Then any riling by Wisconsin staff would have been muted as he focused on exiting the arena and getting back with his team.

Punches are bad, but being a sore loser is a long-term coaching issue.

Mods?

I don't think he should survive this. We should get Beilein back to finish out the remainder of the season, then hire Tom Crean. Let the dynasty commence in full force!

WINTER IS COMING

What are the "plenty of issues" other than this and the one with Turgeon?

No, he doesn't survive it, and now that we have more video and audio I'm actually even more confident of that.

You can rationalize it away all you want (and dear lord, some of you are trying) but: nothing in that sequence of events justified physical violence. Howard was the one who escalated it past the point of no return with the punch, which was not a proportional response to someone grabbing his arm. He wasn't apologetic, and blaming Wisconsin without taking even a little personal responsibility played disastrously nationally. His actions and the fact he and potentially multiple players will be suspended probably took Michigan from bubble team to firmly out of the tournament. This is now, unfortunately, a pattern of behavior with Howard. And the fact this did happen on national TV matters because as long as Howard is with the team, this will be the moment a lot of people associate with the team.

And look, I've seen people try to handwave away every individual point in my list - but when you put all of that together, I don't think the university has a choice here. Even if Howard is reprimanded severely with, say, a suspension for the rest of the year and anger management training this isn't going away as long as he's here. This already has affected the team and university's image nationally, and while that can be undone it'll require quick, decisive action. Maybe Mary Sue Coleman steps in to play the big bad and save Warde from taking blame, but I don't see Howard remaining employed here.

(Also, I'll be upfront here - I'm probably ignoring any replies to this because this is my opinion and no amount of relitigating it is likely to change my mind when the avalanche of posts in the past day hasn't.)