quote:
Originally posted by Brian Watson:
I call the game the way I see it. When I have a coach telling me the foul count is 9-2 or some other ridiculous number, it makes me laugh.
Great post, Brian!
I got that comment from a player a few weeks ago - the "they only had 2 fouls while we had 9." The player even said, "now how do you explain THAT?" I just said calmly, "you fouled more" and kept walking.
You are exactly right about the interpretation of stats.
The worst part of the whole "refs are the problem" line of reasoning is that it hurts the players' games by allowing them to focus on something other than their own successes and failures. As long as a player has someone else to blame, he doesn't need to focus on improving. As a matter of fact, that's the *primary* way that I have personally seen refs "affect the outcome" of games. A player doesn't like a call or two, feels persecuted, and stews about it rather than playing on. The good players seem to accept most of what happens and get over the rest pretty quickly.