The national story across sports radio on Monday has been the melee between the Michigan and Wisconsin men’s basketball teams ignited by Wolverines head coach Juwan Howard striking out at Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft during the post-game handshake line.
Howard was upset at Wisconsin head coach Greg Garb for calling a timeout with 15 seconds remaining when the Badgers had a 15-point lead. The Michigan coach didn’t want to shake hands with his counterpart, telling Garb that he would remember the perceived slight.
Garb then grabbed Howard’s right elbow to stop him from walking by so he could explain why he called the timeout. Howard objected to Garb putting his hands on me and that led to the fracas.
On Monday morning’s The D.A. Show, Damon Amendolara praised CBS play-by-play broadcaster Andrew Catalon for how he called the incident, saying he explained that Howard was staying back in the handshake line and was clearly upset. But when the situation escalated, Catalon conveyed the right tone of surprise over what was happening.
“Catalon has the exact right pitch,” said Amendolara. “It’s big! It’s a moment! There’s that ‘ay-YO!’ He says there’s a scrum, then doubles it up with ‘There’s a scrum in Madison!’ I mean, that’s just really good. It’s good eating right there from Catalon.”
Amendolara particularly enjoyed Catalon’s exclamation when Howard takes a swing at an opposing coach, the moment it becomes clear that this won’t be just an exchange of words and argument between coaches.
“Note that the truck is trying to play them out with the CBS music,” Amendolara continues. “And a lesser broadcaster just lets the truck go to break, because maybe the truck senses, ‘Hey, let’s cut to commercial before things get ugly here.’
“But because Catalon keeps calling the play-by-play, they can’t cut away. And thank goodness they don’t because we catch on camera, the swing! I think, start to finish, Cat sets it up, ‘Hey, we knew Juwan Howard was leaning back, he wasn’t leading the handshake line, something’s amiss here.’ And then, ‘Ay-YO!'”
Amendolara’s observation that producers might have cut away if not for Catalon continuing to call the action and explain that there was tension in the handshake line was particularly astute. That allowed CBS to capture a moment that viewers may not have seen until afterward on social media, such as when WKOW’s Pablo Iglesias posted his camera footage of the Howard-Gard confrontation.
Catalon also didn’t editorialize in the moment, but also let some emotion convey the shock of what had happened. Amendolara admitted that he’s in the bag for his college classmate, but was right to praise Catalon for good work in a crazy moment.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
