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We all seem to be in agreement that as player skill increases, contact which would have been a foul at lower skill levels becomes incidental contact at the higher level.
I think what Rich is pointing out is it can take a while for officials to adjust their mindsets to what level of contact is incidental as they move higher skill level games. An official who routinely works small school ball is going to call a tighter game because small school players have a harder time playing through contact due to a generally lower skill level. If you take that official and put him in a big school game and he doesn't adjust his mindset, he's going to call fouls on contact that are incidental for that game but would not have been incidental in the games he usually works.
This is where having a patent whistle is important. Waiting to see if the contact puts the player off-balance or forces him to shoot awkwardly allows us to call fouls on contact that actually put the player at a disadvantage.
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