Serious question - how did Pitino's Louisville teams get away with it?
It's about defensive technique. This goes back to John Thompson and Jerry Tarkanian, before Pitino, but there are a couple things you do and you tend to avoid foul calls:
(1) when you get in close to the offensive player, bend your knees into the defender, hold your hands high, but get in close. This creates mis-dribbles and turnovers, sometimes even charging calls, if the offensive player pushes you off to create space for his dribble; and
(2) when you are in close to the offensive player, always swipe
down, not across. And don't reach, and, finally:
(3) in modern times, a lot of offensive players on the wing buy a foul by sweeping their arms with the ball in the hands into the defender to create contact and get the foul call. This is easier to do if the defender is playing with arms out, or arms 3/4 high. If the defender keeps their arms lower when defending a guy on the wing, you're far less likely to give up a cheap foul to a guy's arm swing.
That's how people get away with "physical" man to man defense,
