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Originally Posted by M&M Guy
I know I'm late to this conversation, but I've gone through a couple of stages on this topic. First, I used to notice the lopsided foul count and start looking for fouls to call on the other team. After all, over a season, fouls are usually pretty even amongst teams, right? So if the foul count is uneven, we must be doing something wrong, right? Wrong. Team foul counts are affected by such things as style of play, talent level, and the teams they are playing (rivalries, etc.). If the crew is calling the game the right way, the foul counts are where they should be, even if they are 8 - 0 at some point. Then I moved on to the "I don't care what the count is" phase. I tried to ignore the count so it wouldn't affect the calls I made. Since then, I've figured out game awareness is a big deal. Being aware of when the clock starts and stops, knowing the table set the arrow the proper direction, knowing which direction the arrow is pointing so you don't have to look away from the players during the scrum, knowing who the better players are so you're aware of what the team is trying to do; all of these things add up to game awareness. Knowing the foul count is important because I want to know if we will be shooting the bonus, and I need to be able to find the shooter. If the foul count is "uneven", I better know why - is one team driving more while the other is shooting jump shots from the outside? Maybe, just maybe, we are missing something as a crew; perhaps we've called illegal screens on one team and the other is running a similar offense, so have we missed anything? Not to call something that isn't there, not to "even things up", but to be aware of why the count isn't even.
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