Foul count
 

Reading on ESPN this morning about John Thompson's comments on the officiating between GT's game against Creighton where the foul count was 27-21 in Creighton's favor.

For those of you that work college ball, do your assignors/supervisors encourage you to do anything along the lines of watching foul counts? Are you encouraged to even BE AWARE of the count (other than 7 & 10)? Do you get any type of feedback throughout the year--or at the end of the year--where those types of stats are relayed to you?

Seems to me like a 6-foul differential is no big deal...3 per half. Is that considered a large margin?

This is nothing more than the old coach being classless and representing the school and it's basketball program in a poor manner.

Sad to see, but knowing several of his other beliefs and philosophies, I'm not surprised.

Foul count differential mostly means nothing. If it's 27 to 4 it means one team is fouling more.

Thompson's just being Thompson. Nothing to see there.

Crew was Szelc, Eades, and Boroski. Three very good officials.

27-21? Gimme a break, John!

Personally, I wouldn't say I'm oblivious to foul counts in my games. I think that would be irresponsible. But I only become concerned when the differential is about 4 or more at any point in a given half. Perception is reality, so I take a more objective look at how we as a crew are looking at both teams' styles. But that's not to "bring the count back in line." It's more so to make sure our calls are defendable. Some teams hack a lot, and some are very light on defense. It is what it is.

Said another way: Foul count is of import solely in the context of game management.


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I'm not saying you do this, but I hate this philosophy aspect of game management. So many times I've seen white has one foul and black has eight fouls. Next thing you know an official is calling a couple fouls on white they never would've made otherwise and are potentially not even fouls to begin with.

I won't make things up when the foul count is 8-1, but I'd better not miss one against the team that has 1.

I agree. This speaks to the "art" of officiating. There is a difference between calling what you otherwise wouldn't have, versus striving to be more aware of things you might not be seeing or observing as well as you could be.


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Game I worked yesterday team committed 37 fouls. They only took 36 shots from the field.

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Never, ever have had a supervisor ever address foul counts at the college or high school level.

Peace

^^^^^^^this

As a coach I can honestly say I never let a foul count difference bother me much. We play very aggressive man and most teams we play sit in a 2-3 zone so we often have double the foul count of our opponents. But last week in a game we were cruising in we happened to have a favorable foul count for some reason. With 30 seconds to go in the half my Point guard picked up 2 fouls in 6 seconds and I agreed with both calls, but while heading to the locker room I was behind the officials and they obviously didn't see me coming because I heard the official who hadn't made either call joking "way to even out the foul count partner". Which I looked at as he was just kidding, but at the same time, when that thought is in your head at all then its possible that you have subconsciously done this at one time or another. In a close game giving a foul or two to a player to help your "game management" can make a huge difference.

Didn't really add much to the discussion but figured I'd share since it was something that happened this past week and was relevant to the discussion.

Your story is exactly why I advise officials to keep their mouths shut until reaching the lockerroom with the door closed. Better yet, wait until you meet somewhere away from the school after the game.

I constantly observe officials wanting to talk about plays or situations when it isn't appropriate and they just get themselves into trouble.

My goal every game is to not miss a call, regardless of the foul count at any point. Whether I succeed or not is another matter entirely.

Too many times I've seen the team with 8 fouls get away with something they shouldn't have, or the team with 1 foul getting a phantom foul because, 'well it looked like there couldn't been xyz and no one will complain with the foul count.'

Personally, I'd just rather not worry about it and have any chance of me disadvantaging the team playing better defense, which I'd probably do even if I didn't want to admit it.

+1

Fair doesn't always mean equal.