How many fouls is too many?

[toddwar]

We ran a statistical study in Israel during the 3 seasons 96-99. If I remember correctly, the average number of fouls per game was right around 42 or so. The difference in fouls called against home teams vs. visitors was less than 0.5% in the first two seasons, and in the 3rd season, the difference was exactly 5 (out of more than 4,000 fouls called).

We also did statistics on how many fouls there were in games where X refereed, i.e. we couldn't determine how many fouls each referee called in a given game. but we asked the question: in games where X refereed, how many fouls were called?

Here, we found some interesting numbers. In the main, the games in which there were more experienced referees (2-man mechanics), the average number of fouls called was significantly lower (high 30's) than games in which less experienced referees were involved. You could also see some trends to overcalling in some officials. In a couple of extreme cases, the average number of fouls called in games involving certain referees reached the high 40's, i.e. there might be as many as 20 more foul shots taken in certain games, depending on who the referees were. We felt that we had a big enough bulk of games for each official to makes the numbers statistically significant.

I could dig up the numbers and do a full article for the web site, if anyone's interested.

Todd Warnick
Jerusalem, Israel