Foul Calls at All-time Low

[CardiacCuse]

Bilas: Updated 1-68 rankings and the emergency that is college basketball officiating

We're less than a month from Selection Sunday, and The Bilastrator has once again spoken.

www.espn.com

I complain a ton about reffing of SU games...the quality is often very sporadic...sometimes borderline criminal.

After reading this piece by Jay Bilas, I feel at least that its not only me. I agree with him 100%

He says that fouls called are at an all-time low in the sport and that coaches are teaching players to "defend" based on how the game is called - basically to foul every possession as they know they will get away with it...villanova is one the teams for sure...but they are many others.

I think for this particualr year especially the current envirnoment of looking the other way to physical play...hits this team very hard...

1. they are often overmatched athletically (although usually have the height advantage)...
2. beyond that with a short rotation playing in overly physical games just wears the team down and they have nothing left in the last 5 minutes of games...where they have blow in a bunch of times this year.
3. On top of all that, it seems that SU plays to avoid fouling almost all of the time and since that is their "normal" it seems refs call it very tight on them frequently.

We see Jimmy and Jim complain a lot about non-calls and they arent always complaining with a point, but they often are

in the VT game, the foulshots were like 20-4 or something in favor of VT - that was the ballgame - and I legit think some calls were missed in favor of VT (even though tv teddy and his crew missed some in favor of SU too)

Im often watching on a laptop and cant be sure on a lot of questionable plays but I have seen buddy get hacked a lot with no calls this season for sure...

I think if the refs called things properly...the team's record is a bit different this year.

 

[HoustonCuse]

Not a good alignment of stars when the year our entire team is low athleticism jump shooters, that uncalled fouls are at a historic high...

 

[HoustonCuse]

Plus.. now that Jesse is done for the season, the foul call numbers will take another significant step down!

 

[Fly Rodder]

On top of all that, it seems that SU plays to avoid fouling almost all of the time and since that is their "normal" it seems refs call it very tight on them frequently.

This is conspiracy-thinking bias. The NCAA referees are not swallowing their whistle against every other team in college and then calling it "tight" on SU.

SU plays a zone dependent on steals and blocks, they are routinely charging in to defend the player only when he gets the ball trying to tip passes and block shots.

 

[Sherman20]

Bilas: Updated 1-68 rankings and the emergency that is college basketball officiating

We're less than a month from Selection Sunday, and The Bilastrator has once again spoken.

www.espn.com

I complain a ton about reffing of SU games...the quality is often very sporadic...sometimes borderline criminal.

After reading this piece by Jay Bilas, I feel at least that its not only me. I agree with him 100%

He says that fouls called are at an all-time low in the sport and that coaches are teaching players to "defend" based on how the game is called - basically to foul every possession as they know they will get away with it...villanova is one the teams for sure...but they are many others.

I think for this particualr year especially the current envirnoment of looking the other way to physical play...hits this team very hard...

1. they are often overmatched athletically (although usually have the height advantage)...
2. beyond that with a short rotation playing in overly physical games just wears the team down and they have nothing left in the last 5 minutes of games...where they have blow in a bunch of times this year.
3. On top of all that, it seems that SU plays to avoid fouling almost all of the time and since that is their "normal" it seems refs call it very tight on them frequently.

We see Jimmy and Jim complain a lot about non-calls and they arent always complaining with a point, but they often are

in the VT game, the foulshots were like 20-4 or something in favor of VT - that was the ballgame - and I legit think some calls were missed in favor of VT (even though tv teddy and his crew missed some in favor of SU too)

Im often watching on a laptop and cant be sure on a lot of questionable plays but I have seen buddy get hacked a lot with no calls this season for sure...

I think if the refs called things properly...the team's record is a bit different this year.

Nova does it now and for much of the Wright era. Pitt under Howland and Dixon was notorious, much to SU fan’s consternation.

 

[DoctorBombay]

Nova does it now and for much of the Wright era. Pitt under Howland and Dixon was notorious, much to SU fan’s consternation.

Thompson’s GTown, Arkansas’ “40-minutes of hell”, Pitino’s LVille- just 3 teams off the top of my head who lived by this credo.
SU was never deep enough to employ such a strategy. Its ugly basketball but can be very effective.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Aaron Craft punching the air right now wishing he was at osu for his 25th and final year this season

 

[Cusefan0307]

But, I bet offensive fouls are at an all time high.

 

[Col. Bleep]

Aaron Craft punching the air right now wishing he was at osu for his 25th and final year this season

He would have formed a great backcourt with Carl Krauzer.
They could have been called "The Eternals"

 

[tbonezone]

syracuse has committed 350 fouls. opponents 385.
syracuse has attempted 458 fts. opponents 357.
drop with the refs stuff. those are the facts friends.

 

[CardiacCuse]

This is conspiracy-thinking bias. The NCAA referees are not swallowing their whistle against every other team in college and then calling it "tight" on SU.

SU plays a zone dependent on steals and blocks, they are routinely charging in to defend the player only when he gets the ball trying to tip passes and block shots.

i dont think it is an "only SU" problem

BUT I think JB is def a coach who preaches DO NOT FOUL - his big men just stand there with their arms straight up, for example (which, once opponents are aware of, they often just score with impunity)- I think he wants his players to not do anything that could be construed as a foul - as opposed to a coach like Jay Wright - who wants his players to be as physical as possible i.e. handchecking, grabbing, AS A RULE etc

I agree that SU still does do a lot of fouling totally accidentally - especially Jesse - and Marek was even worse perhaps. ...not nearly as much as other teams - they are almost always the less physical team in terms of whomever they are playing. I think JB wants his team to have zero fouls basically...whereas I dont think you can say that about a lot of coaches...But it totally agree with you that Su players do foul and do deserve fouls called in many cases - though, I will usually say that they are the team that fould least in their games despite that not being reflected in actual whistles blown.

If you look at jesses fouls ...sometimes he barely touches or doesnt touch the opponent. I feel like the refs are just calling it when its going to look like a foul - like that block frank had vs VT - some of it must just be incompetence.

overall the zone involves a lot less physical contact in terms of defender on offensive player - so there SHOULD be less calls on zone - a lot of teams use it when they are in foul trouble to avoid more fouls actually!

i def think refs often try to "balance it out"...so if a team is losing, they often get the benefit of the doubt on calls. and most whistles during that stretch of the game go in their favor. there are "foul phases" in most games - the losing team and home team are usually the benficiary of such stretches of play.

While I agree that the SU players accidentally foul as a result of going for steals/blocks - and sometimes on purpose like when buddy stops fast breaks intentionally - the point for me is that basically all of SU fouls are either to stop a layup or unintentional - the other teams mostly foul on purpose -


and that these two different philosophies are resulting in different game situations for these types of teams

since refs are just letting things go a lot - the physical teams are at a crazy advantage in this current envirnoment

BECAUSE - refs are gonna let a lot go - but will still try to balance out calls somewhat - especially depending on game state.

but yeah there are also calls that are made when no contact or phantom offensive calls etc...while the refs are letting a lot go they are also inconsistent in what they do call...which is even worse than just letting teams be physical

and overall that this current reffing climate is basically the worst possible for this version of SU basketball.

 

[CardiacCuse]

syracuse has committed 350 fouls. opponents 385.
syracuse has attempted 458 fts. opponents 357.
drop with the refs stuff. those are the facts friends.

but that doesnt address the reality.

jay bilas is on the committee that oversees reffing in NCAA basketball...you dont have to take my word for it.

he makes it very clear that he sees a problem

for me - 350 for SU and 385 for opponents - is not clear evidence of fariness - in fact, I think most oppoents and opposing coaches are more open to fouling than JB - how can we be sure that the margin shouldnt be larger than it has been in terms of calls made?

35 calls - is like 1 or 2 more per game i favor of SU - what if it should really be 5-10?

could be evidence that refs just "balance it out" instead of calling things objectively

the total free throws just show me that I am right about JBs philosophy on defense - which is basically NEVER foul a shooter unless they are about to dunk. he hates giving up FTs to opponents and coaches his players that way-

perhaps the margins should be greater.

 

[tbonezone]

what if it should really be 5-10 (per game) ?

and just to be clear you're upset we're not getting an even LARGER MAJORITY of the calls.

 

[upperdeck]

there is no reason that a team playing zone should be in foul trouble more often than teams we play like FSU and others that play aggressive all over the floor, set illegal screens all game and bump every player off the spot.. the reason SU gets fouls is they call the ones in the paint a ton and we get the 2-3 a game on jump shots where guys are falling down before the contact.. if they called the fouls on D outside the 10ft area as close as they did around the basket we would get to the line 10-15 times more a game

 

[CardiacCuse]

there is no reason that a team playing zone should be in foul trouble more often than teams we play like FSU and others that play aggressive all over the floor, set illegal screens all game and bump every player off the spot.. the reason SU gets fouls is they call the ones in the paint a ton and we get the 2-3 a game on jump shots where guys are falling down before the contact.. if they called the fouls on D outside the 10ft area as close as they did around the basket we would get to the line 10-15 times more a game

exactly

one excpected benefit of playing zone should be less fouls than any opponent that plays man...especially aggressively like FSU etc

there have been some games this season where SU has indeed fouled more and deserved more foul calls than opponents...but on the whole...playing zone and playing to avoid fouls away from the rim should lead to a wide gap in terms of foul calls, imo

 

[IthacaMatt]

Not a good alignment of stars when the year our entire team is low athleticism jump shooters, that uncalled fouls are at a historic high...

It's also not good for the game.
I'm finding NBA actually fun to watch, at least in spurts, compared to most college games.

 

[IthacaMatt]

but that doesnt address the reality.

jay bilas is on the committee that oversees reffing in NCAA basketball...you dont have to take my word for it.

he makes it very clear that he sees a problem

for me - 350 for SU and 385 for opponents - is not clear evidence of fariness - in fact, I think most oppoents and opposing coaches are more open to fouling than JB - how can we be sure that the margin shouldnt be larger than it has been in terms of calls made?

35 calls - is like 1 or 2 more per game i favor of SU - what if it should really be 5-10?

could be evidence that refs just "balance it out" instead of calling things objectively

the total free throws just show me that I am right about JBs philosophy on defense - which is basically NEVER foul a shooter unless they are about to dunk. he hates giving up FTs to opponents and coaches his players that way-

perhaps the margins should be greater.

There's also the nature of the fouls that become normalized, going back to Georgetown, and Butler, and Nova and Huggins, and Cheney back at Temple. It's been going on a long time. There are certain things that defenders routinely get away with, and most of them are biased in favor of man defense.

For instance, defenders get right up underneath dribblers. That's a foul, it's not good defense. You are physically impeding the dribbler. That is a textbook "push".

Similarly, Georgetown made a practice of their defenders bending their knees, and sort of using them to trap and initiate contact with offensive players when they would trap. The offensive guy would often get called for the foul trying to break out of the "Knee Trap".

Swiping down for steals, often catching the offensive player's forearm, is tolerated way more often than swiping across the arms. It's still the same contact. It's still a foul. But only 1 is usually called.

Now, think about the closeouts in the zone, where guys are literally flying at shooters. We get called on more of those than are probably actually fouls.

Standing-still defensive fouls on bigs seem to get called on us an awfully lot in the zone, whereas big men playing man to man are allowed to bang on each other much more, due to the nature of the defense they're playing.

Both the "Phantom Fly-Outs" and the "Standing Still Block" have often become "anticipation" calls against the zone defender.

It works against us with the officials, I'm convinced.

 

[Cusefan0307]

The officials let a lot go both ways today out there. Guys were getting body checked with zero calls. The game was only about an hour and 45 minutes long because of it. They really need to enforce cleaning up the contact again.

 

[IthacaMatt]

The officials let a lot go both ways today out there. Guys were getting body checked with zero calls. The game was only about an hour and 45 minutes long because of it. They really need to enforce cleaning up the contact again.

Just because the ump has a big strike zone that day doesn't mean that one team isn't still getting more of the calls.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Just because the ump has a big strike zone that day doesn't mean that one team isn't still getting more of the calls.

Of course. That’s why when I see TV Teddy I know we have about a 25% chance with him doing our games over the past decade.