[BktBallRef]

Dan, I understand what you're asking. I just think it's difficult to generalize in that fashion. Too many factors are involved. Different teams have different players, run different offenses and different defenses.

I had a holiday tournament semi-final game two years ago in which we called 66 fouls. To look at the write-up in the paper, yes, it looked like too many fouls. But both teams played man to man, one team is notorious for playing defense with their feet, lots of driving to the basket, and they ran every chance they go. The final score was something like 96-89.

I think we called the game like we had to. However, since that game, when our crew is faced with such a game, we let a lot more contact go. It seems that most coaches would rather have less fouls called, even if it's more physical. It's much more difficlt, I think, to call a game in this manner. And even though the coaches prefer it, they still want it called differently when they have the ball.

We had the same two schools, same tourney, semi-finals again, about three weeks ago. Basically, we let them play. Although the teams were not as physical as their counterparts two years ago, we still had to call 20 fouls in the first half. The trio that called the first semi, came in at halftime and said they didn't see anything we could have not called in the 1st half. BTW, I think we ended the game with around 45 fouls.

Perception is reality, moreso than intentions.