Michigan went into a TV timeout leading Maryland by 10 with a little over 10 minutes to play in Friday's Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal. When the broadcast resumed, Juwan Howard had been ejected.
Cameras showed Howard getting into a heated argument with Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon and the rest of the Terrapins' sideline during the break. Howard had to be held back several times by his assistant coaches and co-captain Isaiah Livers before getting tossed by the officials and leaving the floor in fury.
According to Big Ten Network sideline reporter Rick Pizzo, Howard was trying to communicate with his players on the court when he heard something from Maryland's sideline that left him "absolutely incensed."
"Juwan Howard had been walking toward his players pointing to his head as if to say, 'Use your head.' There was trash-talking going on. Howard continued closer to the Maryland bench ... and someone said something that absolutely incensed Juwan," Pizzo reported. "Whatever it was set him off to the point that he had to be held off multiple times."
According to Howard, Turgeon told him he was outside the legal coaching box on Michigan's sideline.
"He's telling the referee, 'Look at his feet, he's out of the box.' And I'm like, 'Come on, man. This is what we're doing today? You're worrying about my feet being out of the box?' He said to me, 'Juwan, I'm not going to let you talk to me. Don't talk to me ever again.' And then he charged at me," said Howard.
Turgeon said this has been an issue for him each of Maryland's past three games against Michigan. He also shot down a rumor that he said something to Howard about the Fab Five banners coming down at Michigan.
"This has been going on for three games," he said. "I've been doing this for 34 years and I've called the conference office and the commissioner's office about what transpired in the first two games and I said I wasn't going to take it in the third game. So I stood up for my team, I stood up for myself. There's a rumor out there that I said something about the banners. All I said was, 'Don't talk to me.' Nothing about a banner.
"The commissioner of the league and the league office are well aware of what transpired the first two games and they'll handle it from here. But I thought I was as professional as I could be in the moment standing up for myself, 34 years of doing it the right way, and standing up for Maryland basketball. And then it escalated."
Maryland briefly pulled within five after Howard's ejection, but the Wolverines salted the game away in the final minutes and won by double digits.
Michigan assistant head coach Phil Martelli finished out the game in Howard's absence and said afterward he wasn't really sure what led to Howard's ejection other than, "Something he saw didn't feel right for him."
Martelli did say there was "friction" between the two teams in their first meeting in December, but "nothing in the second game" in January.
"I don't really know," he said. "I can't cay who was right or who was wrong."
Then he paused and added: "It's March."
