The University of Michigan has agreed to a long-term contract extension with men’s basketball head coach Juwan Howard, the program announced on Tuesday in a press release. Howard’s new deal will run through the 2025/26 season, locking him up for the next five years.
Howard has been identified as a potential NBA head coaching candidate in recent years, but the former Heat assistant has repeatedly shot down rumors that he’d be interested in returning to the league. If he changes his mind during the next five years, Howard could probably negotiate an exit from his deal with the Wolverines. But the fact that he agreed to that extension in the first place suggests he doesn’t plan on going anywhere.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Duke’s Paolo Banchero, a projected top-two pick in the 2022 NBA draft, was arrested on Sunday for aiding and abetting DWI, according to Steve Wiseman of The Raleigh News & Observer. Blue Devils guard Michael Savarino, who was driving a vehicle registered to Banchero, was charged with DWI. Both players have December court dates.
- NBA games will be played in the United Arab Emirates for the first time next fall, according to Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, who reports that the league will schedule two exhibition games in Abu Dhabi in October 2022. The NBA has previously played exhibitions in the Middle East in Israel, but this will be the league’s first trip to the UAE.
- A handful of ESPN writers took a closer look at some underperforming teams to assess how concerned those clubs should be about their slow starts. The Hawks, Bucks, and Celtics are among the teams that shouldn’t be too worried quite yet, but the panic meter is already high for the Pelicans.