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Phil Martelli pumped his left fist in the air, celebrating a win Michigan needed after Juwan Howard’s swipe.
The former Saint Joseph’s coach filled in for the suspended Howard for the first of five games Wednesday night, and guided the Wolverines to a 71-62 win over Rutgers.
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After shaking hands with the visiting coaches and players along the sideline without incident, Martelli did a postgame TV interview near the blue block `M’ at center court.
Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel was standing in the corner of the court closest to the team’s locker room, waiting to hug the 67-year-old coaching veteran temporarily in charge of a basketball program without its coach for the rest of the regular season.
Martelli and Manuel embraced for more than a brief second, and it was clear the moment meant a lot to each.
“I’m here to serve, and to be acknowledged for serving is very much appreciated,” Martelli said. “I will share this with you and I shared this with players before they went on the court. Warde Manuel did not ask me to try to coach this team. He said, `Do it,’ so I did it. We did it. The players did it.”
Michigan interim head coach Phil Martelli walks off the court after a win against Rutgers in an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022, in Ann Arbor, Mich.
(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
The Wolverines (15-11, 9-7) bounced back from a lopsided loss at Wisconsin, where Howard and two of their players were suspended for their roles in a postgame melee, with an impressive win in a matchup of Big Ten on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
“Coach Howard, he sent us a motivating text before the game and I think it fueled all of us,” guard DeVante’ Jones said.
Howard was relegated to following his team on TV, and no one in the postgame news conference said they knew where he watched the game.
The third-year coach, former NBA player and member of Michigan’s Fab…
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