Michigan Basketball: What to make of the Zavier Simpson incident

Michigan basketball was without its star point guard, temporarily. Zavier Simpson received a one-game suspension for a mysterious traffic incident that occurred in late January. Here’s what we know and what to make of it.

Plenty of conjecture has surrounded the suspension of Michigan basketball‘s senior guard Zavier Simpson. Many have misconstrued the information publicly available – going as far as chanting DUI at an event – which is likely due to the disinterest of the intricate details of the situation.

This isn’t a murder, nor is it any other violent or heinous crime. It was, at least from the information on hand, a traffic accident.

Here are the details.

According to the many reports from both MLive and The Athletic, Zavier Simpson was involved in an accident; wherein, he struck some sort of public utility pole in the early morning hours (sometime before four AM) with a vehicle belonging to Athletic Director Warde Manuel.

According to the police report obtained by MLive, Simpson then lied about his name – going by the pseudonym Jeff Jackson Simpson – and, at least initially, denied being the driver of the vehicle. Furthermore, the officers also remarked that while Simpson was stumbling as he tried to reenter the vehicle, they did not smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath.

The vehicle

Per Brenden Quinn of The Athletic, the car was registered to Warde’s wife, Chrislan Manuel, who had given it to her son, Evan – a team manager and also, purportedly, a resident of the same apartment building as Zavier.

Evan allegedly allowed Simpson to borrow the car that night.

The stumbling, breath, and further investigation

There are two theories that can explain Simpson’s lack of balance.

The first:

The incident took place a few hours after an exhausting athletic event, it was a little before four in the morning, there were blinding red and blue lights, and police were on scene. That, coupled with being involved in an accident, would cause anyone – impaired or not – to stumble.

The second:

The Athletic reported that they submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which was rejected, prompting the second theory. As Brendan Quinn wrote, “The Athletic’s Freedom of Information Act request filed on Jan. 26 for the crash report was denied by the Ann Arbor Police Department on Feb. 3 due to the ongoing investigation.”

Considering Ann Arbor PD had provided MLive with the report a few days prior, there should be no reason to deny another request unless the investigating officer was told to complete additional steps before his/her account would be published.

On a simple accident, reports should be submitted either the same day or within a few days. For the law enforcement officials to deny a FOIA request due to an ‘ongoing investigation,’ this cannot be a simple auto accident.

One explanation for the denial and a theory for the stumbling is that the officers on the scene felt Zavier was impaired, and since they didn’t smell alcohol on his breath, they might have either obtained a court order for a blood draw or received consent from the Wolverines star point guard.

That would explain the rejection.

More innocent investigative practices may account for the delay in reporting. For instance, there could have been additional damage to public property that needed to be annotated or witness accounts that didn’t quite match that of initial statements.

Either way, this is the one part of the story that doesn’t make sense, and it could, potentially, be damaging.

What to make of it

For now, the punishment has been handed down to the Michigan basketball point guard, and the time has been served, but we clearly don’t have all the facts, and we may never get them.

Ultimately, though, the entire situation, on the surface, seems relatively innocuous. If Zavier committed an egregious crime, he would have been arrested on-site. The fact that he only received a single-game suspension tells us that the internal investigation conducted by the athletic department failed to reveal any defamatory material.

Simpson isn’t innocent, but until there’s proof of further guilt, the crime should be classified as damage to public property – a misdemeanor punishable by a fine.