A little research
 

Sitting here watching games and thought I would have some fun. Went to the box scores of all completed games to this point. Here is what I found.

24 total games played

Fouls called: 902
Free throws shot: 1065

Fouls called/game: 37
FT shot/game: 44

Biggest differential in free throws shot was in the Baylor/Nebraska game. Baylor shot 48, Nebraska shot 16.

Oklahoma State/Gonzaga had the highest totals. 58 fouls called, and 75 free throws shot.

On a side note. Saw that there are still 6 perfect brackets left at ESPN Challenge.

No wonder the coach was pissed.

That would explain why I didn't like that game. Officials were very prominent. No flow. Just a FT competition. Announcers were even worse.

Not an excuse.

Maybe they should've fouled less.

I haven't seen the game but everyone seems to be framing this as the officials' fault. Was it possibly a game where the players just kept playing too physical and kept fouling? High foul counts can occur from an over called game or from a game with a lot of fouls.

Never said it was.

Expand the Research?
 

Maybe with all that time you have, expand your research and look at the conference tournament games and maybe even the regular season games to see if there is any trends appearing.

I don't have the time to do this but some of the info might already be out there.

Thanks for what you've already done.

The following is for games thru 3-21-14. This will include some tournament games but will give us an overall look. The only way to sort was for each team. All info was gathered at NCAA.COM

TEAM WITH FEWEST FOULS AGAINST PER GAME
Michigan---14

TEAM WITH HIGHEST FOULS AGAINST PER GAME
Manhattan---24

TEAM WITH HIGHEST FT ATT PER GAME
BYU---30

TEAM WITH FEWEST FT ATT PER GAME
Cornell---15

Just by this info, we can see that fouls and free throw attempts are up during the tournament.

Given that 50% of the teams only play 1 game these stats look cherry-picked. You would have to average the fouls across every game of the tournament and then compare it to the same average from previous tournaments.

True, probably better to wait until the end of the tournament and revisit it.