Crash…no whistle

[johnny d]

Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.

Johnny:

You are still buying into the fallacy that because there are "bodies on the floor" that there was "probably" a foul. Unless you saw what caused "bodies to be on the floor" you cannot make the statement that there was "probably" a foul. You do not know that. Either you saw a foul or you did not.

MTD, Sr.

MTD,

Whether or not I have seen the play and whether or not a foul was called on the play are irrelevant. Fouls happen all the time that are not penalized for a number of different reasons and fouls are called on plays where no infraction has occurred.

Yes I can make the statement that because there are bodies on the floor so there was probably a foul without believing in any fallacy. It is called statistics and there is a whole field of mathematics dedicated to it. I have seen enough plays while officiating and watching basketball to make the statement, using statistics, to say that on these plays a foul probably occurred. That statement does not in any way mean that each individual play shouldn't be judged on its merits or that there should be some default so that an official on the game automatically blows his whistle because there has to be a foul.