Jim Souhan offers a good take on the dust up between Gard and Howard. Love his line about Fran:
The handshake line is silly. It's phony. It's for show, as the NCAA tries to send the message that these games are all about student-athletes learning life lessons.
These games are about making lots of television money.
College basketball should adopt the NBA's practice — players and coaches who want to shake hands and talk after the game are free, but not required, to do so.
Basketball is a chippy sport, especially in the Big Ten. The handshake line is a fight waiting to happen.
The two most troubling aspects of the fight were Howard's punch and Gard's body language.
Gard's body language suggested he felt entitled to school an opposing coach.
Can you imagine Gard confronting Michigan State's Tom Izzo? Or Iowa's Fran McCaffery?
Howard starred in high school and at Michigan and played in the NBA for 19 years. In his second season as a college coach, he won the 2021 Big Ten title. The timeout reset rule is not one from the NBA, but Howard also has longtime St. Joseph's head coach Phil Martelli as his top assistant.
Gard's assumption that he could or should tutor Howard is astonishingly arrogant.
Or something much worse.
The handshake line is silly. It's phony. It's for show, as the NCAA tries to send the message that these games are all about student-athletes learning life lessons.
These games are about making lots of television money.
College basketball should adopt the NBA's practice — players and coaches who want to shake hands and talk after the game are free, but not required, to do so.
Basketball is a chippy sport, especially in the Big Ten. The handshake line is a fight waiting to happen.
The two most troubling aspects of the fight were Howard's punch and Gard's body language.
Gard's body language suggested he felt entitled to school an opposing coach.
Can you imagine Gard confronting Michigan State's Tom Izzo? Or Iowa's Fran McCaffery?
Howard starred in high school and at Michigan and played in the NBA for 19 years. In his second season as a college coach, he won the 2021 Big Ten title. The timeout reset rule is not one from the NBA, but Howard also has longtime St. Joseph's head coach Phil Martelli as his top assistant.
Gard's assumption that he could or should tutor Howard is astonishingly arrogant.
Or something much worse.