how many fouls is too many?

[bainsey]

Originally Posted by Moosie74

The players will adjust to the officials style if you let them but there has to be a consistency established for that to happen.

I've heard for years, "Call the fouls; the players will adapt."

However, this isn't always the case.

I had a JVG last Friday night that had about 50 fouls. It wasn't really an overly aggressive game. It was what I call "players trying to play above their level." Consequently, there's a fair amount of bumping, handchecking, and simply unnecessarily advantageous contact. What's more, the girls weren't learning from the calls. They just kept going at the same pace, and it was working for the home team, who won 46-22 (even though three home players fouled out).

Cut to Monday afternoon, MS girls. These players learned. One example was a first-quarter rebounding displacement foul I called. The girl looked at her coach and said, "but I was boxing out!" (Sound familiar?) I didn't have a displacement foul on that team the rest of the game. In fact, the contact cleaned up so much, we didn't have a bonus situation until overtime, and it was a well-played game for that level, so I enjoyed the extra frame.

Oh, the only time I see 7 minute quarters here is in middle school. About half of middle schools do 8 minute quarters. All HS levels here do 8 minutes.