Officiating analysis - foul disparity

[RUChoppin]

So, there was a lot of hate toward Tina Napier and the officials during yesterday's game thread, that bled out into another thread or two. Someone had suggested going back through old games Napier had called, and I figured I'd go one better and take a look at all our box scores back through joining the Big Ten for the 2014-15 season.

This was mostly posted in the game thread, but it was recommended to make a new thread on this topic - so I'll try to get in some more information.

Overall, we've played 147 games since joining the Big Ten in 2014. Over that time, we've averaged more fouls than our opponents - but that's expected, given the style of defense we play. Across all 147 games, we've committed an average of 18.1 fouls to our opponents' 14.5, for a disparity of +3.6

I also marked down which three officials called each game for 146 games (for whatever reason, our game this year against Stony Brook has no record of who the refs were), and which teams we played. With that, I could get a disparity for each game an official called or for a specific opponent, and look at some averages.

Some caveats: Foul disparity is in no way a perfect stat, but it's the only thing I can easily get from box scores. Sometimes fouls go up at the end of close games when one team has to foul to stop the clock, and sometimes there's a disparity throughout most of a game before the refs try to even things out later on. There's also no way to know which ref called which fouls, so all three refs are getting tagged for any foul called in a game they participated in.

Also, I pulled this all manually, so it's possible I have a typo floating around in there, though I tried to be as careful as possible.

That said, some numbers...

Opponents
Looking at each opponent by foul disparity and number of games played, for teams we've played at least 4 times in the last 4.5 seasons:
11.8 - Iowa (6 games)
7.1 - OSU (7)
6.0 - Indiana (6)
5.5 - Purdue (8)
5.0 - Northwestern (7)
4.5 - Wisconsin (6)
4.3 - Maryland (7), MSU (6)
4.0 - Minnesota (5)
2.3 - Temple (4)
2.0 - Illinois (5)
1.7 - Nebraska (7)
1.6 - PA St (7)
1.0 - Michigan (5)
0.3 - Virginia (4)
-1.8 - SHU (4)

By far the opponent who we have the biggest disparity against is Iowa (+11.8). For whatever reason, across multiple officials, we get called for way more fouls than Iowa does when we play them. And on the road (+14.7) at Iowa is much worse than at home (+9.0), but the trend at home has gone against us across three games.

1/23/19: RU 26, IA 12 (+14) - away; Napier, Roberts, Kantner
2/21/18: RU 27, IA 12 (+15) - home; Hall, Brooks, Trammell
2/02/17: RU 21, IA 6 (+15) - away; Bryan Enterline, Barb Smith, Forsberg
1/17/17: RU 20, IA 11 (+9) - home; Roberts, Kantner, Jones
1/04/16: RU 20, IA 5 (+15) - away; Vaszily, Suffern, Kantner
1/04/15: RU 20, IA 17 (+3) - home; Morris, Daley, Blauch

Officials
Looking the average foul disparity across all games called by each official, you can also see those that tend to call more against us than against our opponents. This might be for many reasons - they tend to call tighter games against aggressive defenses, for instance. We've seen 90 different officials across those games, and 34 of them have called at least 6 of our games.

A look at those officials that have called at least 6 games, by foul average foul disparity across those games:
7.3 - B. Trammell (11 games called)
6.7 - M. Forsberg (6)
6.5 - G. Cross (8)
6.4 - J. Dickerson (12)
6.3 - D. Kantner (12), B. Hall (9)
6.2 - B. Roberts (12)
5.8 - A. Bonner (9)
5.4 - C. Inouye (9)
5.3 - B. Garland (14)
5.2 - D. Knight (6)
4.9 - K. Penthtel (7)
4.4 - M. Zentz (14), T. Napier (21)
4.3 - Bryan Enterline (11)
4.1 - F. Grinter (15)
3.9 - L. Morris (12), M. McConnell (12)
3.7 - J. Vazsily (6)

3.6 - Billy Smith (7) [RUTGERS AVERAGE]

3.4 - R. Jones (8)
3.1 - T. Daley (7)
2.8 - L. Mattingly (12), T. Cruse (14)
2.7 - F. Steratore (6)
2.3 - Barb Smith (13)
2.2 - D. Brooks (19)
1.6 - S. Blauch (16)
0.8 - Bob Enterline (6)
0.7 - R. Gulbeyan (6)
0.1 - P. Spurlock (7)
-0.3 - M. Resch (6)
-0.4 - N. Thompson (9)

As far as individual refs that we regularly see that have high disparities, Bob Trammell is the worst with +7.3 average across 11 meetings, with 5 games reaching double digit differential in our opponents' favor and just 1 game with a disparity in our favor (called one more foul on Nebraska than us in Feb 2015). Of his 11 games, just 3 have seen a disparity less than our 3.6 average.

By contrast, much maligned Tina Napier is fairly middle of the pack, though we have seen her more than any other official. Of 21 games, she's hit a double digit disparity against us twice (last night was one... when she was working with Roberts and Kantner, both higher on the list), and has shown a disparity in our favor once (-12, 11/30/17 vs. NC State, working with Gulbeyan and Thompson, both near the bottom of the list). 9 of her 21 games have seen a disparity less than our 3.6 average, and 12 have gone over it.

 

[RC66_rivals315488]

This is fascinating.

Thanks for all the work.

 

[RUClassof67]

Great work. Thank you.
Do you by any chance have the Won-Lostrecord for each of the officials you listed?
As you state, foul disparity is one element but W-L info would be interesting too.

 

[RUChoppin]

Great work. Thank you.
Do you by any chance have the Won-Lostrecord for each of the officials you listed?
As you state, foul disparity is one element but W-L info would be interesting too.

Shouldn't be too hard to add it in. I have all the dates and opponents, so I can just add a W/L column.

I'm tempted to go back further into Big East days, because a lot of these refs have been around a looong time, and it would help by improving the sample size.

 

[RUChoppin]

Okay, added in the win/loss record. Overall through the 147 games, we were 65-82 (.442).

Taking the same list as before, and adding the record into the parentheses:
7.3 - B. Trammell (11; 3-8)
6.7 - M. Forsberg (6; 3-3)
6.5 - G. Cross (8; 3-5)
6.4 - J. Dickerson (12; 5-7)
6.3 - D. Kantner (12; 5-7)
6.3 - B. Hall (9; 5-4)
6.2 - B. Roberts (12; 3-9)
5.8 - A. Bonner (9; 6-3)
5.4 - C. Inouye (9; 6-3)
5.3 - B. Garland (14; 3-11)
5.2 - D. Knight (6; 3-3)
4.9 - K. Pethtel (7; 4-3)
4.4 - M. Zentz (14; 11-3)
4.4 - T. Napier (21; 8-13)
4.3 - Bryan Enterline (11; 6-5)
4.1 - F. Grinter (15; 9-6)
3.9 - L. Morris (12; 7-5),
3.9 - M. McConnell (12; 6-6)
3.7 - J. Vazsily (6; 3-3)
3.6 - Billy Smith (7; 5-2)
3.4 - R. Jones (8; 5-3)
3.1 - T. Daley (7; 4-3)
2.8 - L. Mattingly (12; 6-6)
2.8 - T. Cruse (14; 9-5)
2.7 - F. Steratore (6; 4-2)
2.3 - Barb Smith (13; 10-3)
2.2 - D. Brooks (19; 13-6)
1.6 - S. Blauch (16; 9-7)
0.8 - Bob Enterline (6; 2-4)
0.7 - R. Gulbeyan (6; 4-2)
0.1 - P. Spurlock (7; 5-2)
-0.3 - M. Resch (6; 3-3)
-0.4 - N. Thompson (9; 7-2)

Of the referees who had a disparity greater than our average, 7/19 saw records greater than .500 (and just 1/7 who averaged more than 6 fouls in our opponents favor). Of those with average or better disparity, 11/14 saw records greater than .500


And now resorted based on win %
.214 - B. Garland
.250 - B. Roberts
.273 - B. Trammell
.333 - Bob Enterline
.375 - G. Cross
.381 - T. Napier
.417 - J. Dickerson, D. Kantner
.429 - B. Morris

.442 - RUTGERS AVERAGE

.500 - M. McConnell, L. Mattingly, D. Knight, M. Forsberg, M. Resch, J. Vaszily
.545 - Bryan Enterline
.556 - B. Hall
.563 - S. Blauch
.571 - T. Daley, K. Pethtel
.583 - L. Morris
.600 - F. Grinter
.625 - R. Jones
.643 - T. Cruse
.667 - C. Inouye, A. Bonner, F. Steratore, R. Gulbeyan
.684 - D. Brooks
.714 - P. Spurlock, Billy Smith
.769 - Barb Smith
.778 - N. Thompson
.786 - M. Zentz

 

[RU MAN]

Choppin' thanks for all of the hard work you do. In my post I bring up Napier, but I also bring up Kantner, who has had a bit of a +6.3 foul discrepancy, but I listed her as a fair official over time. The one official Trammell is the one I did not bring up because I did not know his name. I knew there was a particular male official that was regularly bad against us. I just didn't know his name. I looked him up after your post, and yes, this is the one guy who is glaringly bad. I've watched him officiate both women's college ball and even WNBA ball. He's awful. He will call a touch foul when he's 50 feet from the action and not even in good position. He's terrible and I don't understand why he's able to continue.

Maj Forsberg is another notorious referee that has called a lot against us. I just didn't realize how much so. But I guess because she has only officiated 6 games against us, I wasn't aware of her like I have been about Trammell. I also wasn't aware of Dickerson. Wow.

With that said above, I realize we play a very tough and aggressive defense. When a team does that, yes, they will foul more. For me and anyone who has played, coached and followed BB for as long as I have, I know that that's a given. However, I have always complained at how BAD across the board women's officiating is. They miss obvious calls, anticipate fouls, they're out of position, will favor certain schools based on reputation, and most often miss fouls on a regular basis. One would think that C Viv and her reputation for tough defense, would have ALL OF THE OFFICIALS aware of the way we play and not punish us for our tough gritty style. If this were a regular blue-chip program on a regular basis, they would get away with fouling much, much more than we do.

Some on this board who come over from other boards are quick to jump on the fact that C Viv did not complain about the officiating after the game and instead brought up how at the end game we lost our composure and started fouling more. That was true. We did on both accounts. That still does not excuse the huge foul discrepancy throughout the game where Iowa essentially beat us on the line because they had so many more FT attempts. I've said it before and I'll say it again; women's BB officiating is atrocious, much worse than men's BB even though that can be pretty bad too.

 

[RUChoppin]

With that said above, I realize we play a very tough and aggressive defense. When a team does that, yes, they will foul more. For me and anyone who has played, coached and followed BB for as long as I have, I know that that's a given. However, I have always complained at how BAD across the board women's officiating is. They miss obvious calls, anticipate fouls, they're out of position, will favor certain schools based on reputation, and most often miss fouls on a regular basis. One would think that C Viv and her reputation for tough defense, would have ALL OF THE OFFICIALS aware of the way we play and not punish us for our tough gritty style. If this were a regular blue-chip program on a regular basis, they would get away with fouling much, much more than we do.

Some on this board who come over from other boards are quick to jump on the fact that C Viv did not complain about the officiating after the game and instead brought up how at the end game we lost our composure and started fouling more. That was true. We did on both accounts. That still does not excuse the huge foul discrepancy throughout the game where Iowa essentially beat us on the line because they had so many more FT attempts. I've said it before and I'll say it again; women's BB officiating is atrocious, much worse than men's BB even though that can be pretty bad too.

I have a hard time watching women's basketball at this point because of the officiating. I complain sometimes about missed calls in men's games and just overall inconsistency in officiating.... but it's still far and away better than women's basketball officiating, even in the marquee games. It's hard to get too invested in any close game when every third time down the court by either team is a coin flip of whether a bad call will be made/missed. It seems like you need to legitimately play 10+ points better than an opponent to ensure victory.

 

[RUClassof67]

Thanks for doing this. Some surprises in that list.
Really surprised that we are over .500 with Brian Enterline.
I knew I liked Barb Smith (we had her last week against MSU).
Not surprised that we have a losing record with Tina, Jesse Dickerson or Bob Trammell.

 

[RUChoppin]

Thanks for doing this. Some surprises in that list.
Really surprised that we are over .500 with Brian Enterline.

One thing I learned was that there are apparently three Enterline brothers, all with the same first initial.... Bob, Bryan, and Brendan. I realized this about halfway through just using "B. Enterline", then had to go back and fix them all. Also started with "B. Smith" before realizing there was Barb and Billy Smith.

 

[Super tRUper]

This is one if the more interesting analysis I've seen across all sports boards. With that said and not sure if you or someone else has mentioned it but have you taken into account each opponent's average foul call per game? It would be interesting to see if Iowa or another just doesnt get called much or they're holding whistles against us.

 

[RUChoppin]

This is one if the more interesting analysis I've seen across all sports boards. With that said and not sure if you or someone else has mentioned it but have you taken into account each opponent's average foul call per game? It would be interesting to see if Iowa or another just doesnt get called much or they're holding whistles against us.

Not something that could easily get folded into the analysis across all teams, but if I have some time today I can take a look at Iowa specifically because they're such an outlier. It's possible that it's a combination of their style of defense and a culture of "selling" fouls well to refs.

 

[RUTrack94]

Thanks for doing this for everyone ... now we need someone to put together bad officiating videos after each game (no call, etc) ... one sport in particular is football and missed holdings

 

[RUClassof67]

Not something that could easily get folded into the analysis across all teams, but if I have some time today I can take a look at Iowa specifically because they're such an outlier. It's possible that it's a combination of their style of defense and a culture of "selling" fouls well to refs.

Would think this stat would depend on the makeup of a team in a given year. For example, Iowa with Gustafson taking so many short shots off lob passes would likely have more fouls called for them than, say a Michigan team with a Katelyn Flaherty which attempts significantly more 3-pointers. Just MHO.

 

[RUChoppin]

Would think this stat would depend on the makeup of a team in a given year. For example, Iowa with Gustafson taking so many short shots off lob passes would likely have more fouls called for them than, say a Michigan team with a Katelyn Flaherty which attempts significantly more 3-pointers. Just MHO.

Yes, personnel would be a factor, though coaches frequently recruit to the certain type of offense they like to run, too. A coach's defensive style would also play into it. Lots of zone vs strictly man, frequency of a press or fighting over screens vs switching, etc.

 

[Abro1975]

http://home.kelley.iupui.edu/kyjander/Officiating paper - Final draft version.pdf

The first test compares the foul differential at the end of the half with the expected
foul differential under the assumption of independence. Figure 1 illustrates the empirical and
expected differential. The mean and variance of the foul differential (home team fouls less
visiting team fouls) for the 272 regular season games are -.960 and 7.40. Taking the number
of foul calls as constant and assuming an equal probability of a foul call on each team, the
expected mean and standard deviation of foul calls are 0 and 19.89. Using a chi-squared test
to compare the ratio of the actual and expected variances, the variance of the actual foul distribution is lower than the expected [χ2 (df, N=272) = 100.72, P<.001)]. A T test is used
to compare the sample mean of -.960 with the expected mean of zero. Consistent with a
finding of home bias, the foul differential is significantly less than zero [T (N=272) = 5.819,
P<.001] indicating that significantly more fouls are called on the visiting team.
[

 

[ScarletteK80]

So, there was a lot of hate toward Tina Napier and the officials during yesterday's game thread, that bled out into another thread or two. Someone had suggested going back through old games Napier had called, and I figured I'd go one better and take a look at all our box scores back through joining the Big Ten for the 2014-15 season.

This was mostly posted in the game thread, but it was recommended to make a new thread on this topic - so I'll try to get in some more information.

Overall, we've played 147 games since joining the Big Ten in 2014. Over that time, we've averaged more fouls than our opponents - but that's expected, given the style of defense we play. Across all 147 games, we've committed an average of 18.1 fouls to our opponents' 14.5, for a disparity of +3.6

I also marked down which three officials called each game for 146 games (for whatever reason, our game this year against Stony Brook has no record of who the refs were), and which teams we played. With that, I could get a disparity for each game an official called or for a specific opponent, and look at some averages.

Some caveats: Foul disparity is in no way a perfect stat, but it's the only thing I can easily get from box scores. Sometimes fouls go up at the end of close games when one team has to foul to stop the clock, and sometimes there's a disparity throughout most of a game before the refs try to even things out later on. There's also no way to know which ref called which fouls, so all three refs are getting tagged for any foul called in a game they participated in.

Also, I pulled this all manually, so it's possible I have a typo floating around in there, though I tried to be as careful as possible.

That said, some numbers...

Opponents
Looking at each opponent by foul disparity and number of games played, for teams we've played at least 4 times in the last 4.5 seasons:
11.8 - Iowa (6 games)
7.1 - OSU (7)
6.0 - Indiana (6)
5.5 - Purdue (8)
5.0 - Northwestern (7)
4.5 - Wisconsin (6)
4.3 - Maryland (7), MSU (6)
4.0 - Minnesota (5)
2.3 - Temple (4)
2.0 - Illinois (5)
1.7 - Nebraska (7)
1.6 - PA St (7)
1.0 - Michigan (5)
0.3 - Virginia (4)
-1.8 - SHU (4)

By far the opponent who we have the biggest disparity against is Iowa (+11.8). For whatever reason, across multiple officials, we get called for way more fouls than Iowa does when we play them. And on the road (+14.7) at Iowa is much worse than at home (+9.0), but the trend at home has gone against us across three games.

1/23/19: RU 26, IA 12 (+14) - away; Napier, Roberts, Kantner
2/21/18: RU 27, IA 12 (+15) - home; Hall, Brooks, Trammell
2/02/17: RU 21, IA 6 (+15) - away; Bryan Enterline, Barb Smith, Forsberg
1/17/17: RU 20, IA 11 (+9) - home; Roberts, Kantner, Jones
1/04/16: RU 20, IA 5 (+15) - away; Vaszily, Suffern, Kantner
1/04/15: RU 20, IA 17 (+3) - home; Morris, Daley, Blauch

Officials
Looking the average foul disparity across all games called by each official, you can also see those that tend to call more against us than against our opponents. This might be for many reasons - they tend to call tighter games against aggressive defenses, for instance. We've seen 90 different officials across those games, and 34 of them have called at least 6 of our games.

A look at those officials that have called at least 6 games, by foul average foul disparity across those games:
7.3 - B. Trammell (11 games called)
6.7 - M. Forsberg (6)
6.5 - G. Cross (8)
6.4 - J. Dickerson (12)
6.3 - D. Kantner (12), B. Hall (9)
6.2 - B. Roberts (12)
5.8 - A. Bonner (9)
5.4 - C. Inouye (9)
5.3 - B. Garland (14)
5.2 - D. Knight (6)
4.9 - K. Penthtel (7)
4.4 - M. Zentz (14), T. Napier (21)
4.3 - Bryan Enterline (11)
4.1 - F. Grinter (15)
3.9 - L. Morris (12), M. McConnell (12)
3.7 - J. Vazsily (6)

3.6 - Billy Smith (7) [RUTGERS AVERAGE]

3.4 - R. Jones (8)
3.1 - T. Daley (7)
2.8 - L. Mattingly (12), T. Cruse (14)
2.7 - F. Steratore (6)
2.3 - Barb Smith (13)
2.2 - D. Brooks (19)
1.6 - S. Blauch (16)
0.8 - Bob Enterline (6)
0.7 - R. Gulbeyan (6)
0.1 - P. Spurlock (7)
-0.3 - M. Resch (6)
-0.4 - N. Thompson (9)

As far as individual refs that we regularly see that have high disparities, Bob Trammell is the worst with +7.3 average across 11 meetings, with 5 games reaching double digit differential in our opponents' favor and just 1 game with a disparity in our favor (called one more foul on Nebraska than us in Feb 2015). Of his 11 games, just 3 have seen a disparity less than our 3.6 average.

By contrast, much maligned Tina Napier is fairly middle of the pack, though we have seen her more than any other official. Of 21 games, she's hit a double digit disparity against us twice (last night was one... when she was working with Roberts and Kantner, both higher on the list), and has shown a disparity in our favor once (-12, 11/30/17 vs. NC State, working with Gulbeyan and Thompson, both near the bottom of the list). 9 of her 21 games have seen a disparity less than our 3.6 average, and 12 have gone over it.

Incredible amount of work you did Chopin!!!!! I think I got a "C" when I had stats at Rutgers, and a "B" in grad school, so your post took me a few reads!

 

[ScarletteK80]

http://home.kelley.iupui.edu/kyjander/Officiating paper - Final draft version.pdf

The first test compares the foul differential at the end of the half with the expected
foul differential under the assumption of independence. Figure 1 illustrates the empirical and
expected differential. The mean and variance of the foul differential (home team fouls less
visiting team fouls) for the 272 regular season games are -.960 and 7.40. Taking the number
of foul calls as constant and assuming an equal probability of a foul call on each team, the
expected mean and standard deviation of foul calls are 0 and 19.89. Using a chi-squared test
to compare the ratio of the actual and expected variances, the variance of the actual foul distribution is lower than the expected [χ2 (df, N=272) = 100.72, P<.001)]. A T test is used
to compare the sample mean of -.960 with the expected mean of zero. Consistent with a
finding of home bias, the foul differential is significantly less than zero [T (N=272) = 5.819,
P<.001] indicating that significantly more fouls are called on the visiting team.
[

Good GOD, are you a stat major too?

 

[Knight Time Fan_rivals]

One thing I learned was that there are apparently three Enterline brothers, all with the same first initial.... Bob, Bryan, and Brendan. I realized this about halfway through just using "B. Enterline", then had to go back and fix them all. Also started with "B. Smith" before realizing there was Barb and Billy Smith.

Bryan and Bob are brothers. Brendan is the son (Bryan's I think). Bryan's wife (as most know) is Cameron Inoyue (unless something has changed).

As to others comments - Dickerson, Trammel among the ones I don't think are good refs. And Enterline with his tendency to anticipate.

There's nothing wrong with Dee, if she calls us for more fouls, its because we commit em.

As to Maj Forsberg - I don't have an opinion, I've not seen enough of her games, really. But I do know there are fans (and I don't mean of Rutgers) who think she sees some game in her head that isn't the one being played (yes, someone actually made that comment).

 

[RUChoppin]

http://home.kelley.iupui.edu/kyjander/Officiating paper - Final draft version.pdf

The first test compares the foul differential at the end of the half with the expected
foul differential under the assumption of independence. Figure 1 illustrates the empirical and
expected differential. The mean and variance of the foul differential (home team fouls less
visiting team fouls) for the 272 regular season games are -.960 and 7.40. Taking the number
of foul calls as constant and assuming an equal probability of a foul call on each team, the
expected mean and standard deviation of foul calls are 0 and 19.89. Using a chi-squared test
to compare the ratio of the actual and expected variances, the variance of the actual foul distribution is lower than the expected [χ2 (df, N=272) = 100.72, P<.001)]. A T test is used
to compare the sample mean of -.960 with the expected mean of zero. Consistent with a
finding of home bias, the foul differential is significantly less than zero [T (N=272) = 5.819,
P<.001] indicating that significantly more fouls are called on the visiting team.
[

I meant to include the home/away averages, too.

Across the 147 games:
Home: +1.9
Away: +5.4
Neutral: +4.6

So it looks like we have seen a more favorable whistle in our own building.

Edit: Looking at overall fouls called, though, it seems like H/A/N doesn't impact the calls on our opponents that much - but it does influence the calls against us.

Home: RU 16.6, Opp 14.6
Away: RU 19.9, Opp 14.5
Neutral: RU 19.0, Opp 14.4

On average, we get called for about 3.3-3.5 fewer fouls at home than we do away from the RAC, but our opponents are called pretty equally at the RAC or otherwise.

 

[RC66_rivals315488]

There is one really loud fan toward the back of RAC section 104 who screams really nasty ref' attacks on calls he doesn't like.

(He makes it personal, not about the call itself: "Ref, you stink, you are terrible at your job.")

He does it at almost every game. IMO, there is no percentage in getting a ref' pissed at the home crowd.

 

[RUChoppin]

There is one really loud fan toward the back of RAC section 104 who screams really nasty ref' attacks on calls he doesn't like.

(He makes it personal, not about the call itself: "Ref, you stink, you are terrible at your job.")

He does it at almost every game. IMO, there is no percentage in getting a ref' pissed at the home crowd.

This is common in college basketball, though. Things like the "I'm blind, I'm deaf, I wanna be a ref" and "three blind mice" chants. Duke's pep band was told specifically by the ACC to stop playing the latter. Also the choruses of boos when refs get calls wrong

Those are home crowd things, not things away fans shout from the cheap seats on the road. Pressure on refs is one of the things that influences calls for home teams - they're human, and they don't like to be the focus of negative attention.

Not saying that whatever that guy specifically says says is "in bounds" - just that home fans attacking refs is fairly par for the course.

 

[RU MAN]

To extend this very informative thread (thank you Choppin') today we beat PSU 69-61. The fouls were: RU 20 and PSU 15. But that doesn't paint the real picture here. The last four fouls by PSU were window dressing at the end of the game. What really hurt us was the FT shooting which kept PSU close, because they shot 28 FT's to our 11. They scored 22 points from the charity stripe, but their FG% was abysmal: 30.8% while we shot a very credible 48.3%. So our defense against them was stifling, even though we fouled a lot.

One of the officials was Doug Knight. I don't know much about him, but he has a negative 5.3 fouls per game against us, and when we've played in games he has officiated we're 3-3. So we were 2-3 coming in. One of the other officials, Angie Enlund, is not on Choppin's radar, but Tiara Cruse is. Cruse is one of the more fair officials and our record in those games is 9-5. When Cruse officiates were are only down a negative 2.8.

So the 20-15 doesn't tell the real story, because they shot two and a half times more FT's than we did. Again, some of the calls were outrageously bad and some were more than fair against us. But still, when one side is shooting 28 Ft's and other team (RU) is shooting 11, something is rotten in Denmark.

 

[ScarletteK80]

RU MAN I hope you don't mind but I copied your post to our Football board.

 

[RUChoppin]

To extend this very informative thread (thank you Choppin') today we beat PSU 69-61. The fouls were: RU 20 and PSU 15. But that doesn't paint the real picture here. The last four fouls by PSU were window dressing at the end of the game. What really hurt us was the FT shooting which kept PSU close, because they shot 28 FT's to our 11. They scored 22 points from the charity stripe, but their FG% was abysmal: 30.8% while we shot a very credible 48.3%. So our defense against them was stifling, even though we fouled a lot.

One of the officials was Doug Knight. I don't know much about him, but he has a negative 5.3 fouls per game against us, and when we've played in games he has officiated we're 3-3. So we were 2-3 coming in. One of the other officials, Angie Enlund, is not on Choppin's radar, but Tiara Cruse is. Cruse is one of the more fair officials and our record in those games is 9-5. When Cruse officiates were are only down a negative 2.8.

So the 20-15 doesn't tell the real story, because they shot two and a half times more FT's than we did. Again, some of the calls were outrageously bad and some were more than fair against us. But still, when one side is shooting 28 Ft's and other team (RU) is shooting 11, something is rotten in Denmark.

As I touched on briefly in the original post, foul disparity in a vacuum isn't a great measure - but it's one of the few things we have to go on. I could potentially bring in FTA, too, but it's still a flawed metric. You can't really account for garbage time fouls, fouls to stop the clock to prolong a game, shooting vs. non-shooting, obvious vs. borderline calls, etc. It's really just a small window, and will never tell the "real story".

As far as this game, there was D. Knight (+5.2), T. Cruse (+2.8), and A. Englund (who we've only seen twice before, where she was +2 in a win and +4 in a loss, both at the RAC). It also looks as though the disparity is a bit higher on the road than at home, overall (+5.4 vs. +1.9). So, in this game it looks like we were +5 on the road - which, amazingly, falls fairly roughly in line with averages.

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

The usual excuses for foul and free throw disparities are:

- talent (the other team is more talented, the worse team fouls more)
- inside vs outside shooting (one team shoots threes while the other goes inside and generates fouls and free throws)
- pressing D.. full and three-quarter presses generate reach in fouls and so on
- profile of the coach.. well-known hall of fame coach will get the calls

In many of our games I have seen high free throw and foul disparities that go the other way.. they shoot a lot of threes and we go inside but we lose both the FT and fouls stat.

They might have a young coach and we have CVS...

We are highly ranked with a lot of wins, they are not...

We are ahead and they press to try to make a comeback..

I have seen games with all of these cases where we lose the FTs and foul stats.

What's up with that?

Today vs PSU the fouls were 18 - 11 before the final 2 minutes when PSU would foul on purpose. They attempted 21 3ptrs of their 52 shot attempts and had only 14 points in the paint and that generated 28 FT attempts.

Meanwhile we attempted 12 3ptrs in 58 shot attempts, scored 38 in the paint and shot only 11 FTs.

The refs were Doug Knight, Angie Enlund, Tiara Cruse..
5.2 - D. Knight (6; 3-3)
2.8 - T. Cruse (14; 9-5)
Don't see Angie Enlund.

So if i give her a wash, that means we should have seen 8 more fouls called against us?
Total foul differential was 5... 20-15.. the FT differential was obscene.
Before the intentional fouling in the last 2 minutes the differential was 18-11. So that's pretty close.

That kind of thing is not uncommon in Rutgers games.

When you pair this with getting screwed on NCAA invites and seeding and locations... I have to wonder... besides bad officiating, what else is going on here?

 

[RUChoppin]

The refs were Doug Knight, Angie Enlund, Tiara Cruse..
5.2 - D. Knight (6; 3-3)
2.8 - T. Cruse (14; 9-5)
Don't see Angie Enlund.

So if i give her a wash, that means we should have seen 8 more fouls called against us?

Not exactly how this data is presented. Games that D. Knight has officiated in the past have seen an average of 5.2 fouls called against us, while games that T. Cruse officiated in the past have seen an average of 2.8 more fouls called against us. Enlund only had 2 games with us before today, and her average was 3.0 more fouls called against us.

So, this was more of a "D. Knight average" game, with 5 instead of 5.2... and fell right into her standard. It's a little higher than Cruse usually has seen in the past, but not by much (2 fouls). Enlund has a very small sample of just two home games, this is her first away game.

Also consider that this was an away game, where we get have traditionally gotten a less favorable whistle. On average, in away games, we've seen 19.9 fouls to the other team's 14.5.... and a 20-15 disparity falls right in line with that.

This was fairly average, all things considered, at least in terms of foul disparity.

FT disparity isn't something I pulled in, so don't have any prior examples to go on.

 

[RUChoppin]

Okay, so I took a look at a limited set of data for Iowa. I only looked at the fouls called for/against, the disparity, the opponent, and whether the game was home or away (I didn't include referee names or W/L). I also only looked at Big Ten opponents, which came to 84 games.

Overall, in Big Ten play since 2014-15, they have gotten called for 3.4 fewer fouls than their opponents. As we saw with Rutgers, the disparity favored them more at home (6.0 fewer fouls called than their opponents) than on the road or at neutral sites (1.0 fewer fouls for both).

Overall: IA 14.9 pf, Opp 18.2
Home: IA 15.3, Opp 19.1
Away: IA 14.7, Opp 17.4
Neutral: IA 13.3, 17.9

Interesting that, reverse from us, IA doesn't get fewer fouls against them at home, but their opponents do see more fouls called on their court.

Here's their disparity for Big Ten teams - note they have a disparity at least slightly in their favor against every team in the conference.
-11.8 - Rutgers (6 games)
-5.2 - MSU (6)
-4.6 - Wisconsin (7)
-4.0 - Indiana (5), Penn State (5)
-3.9 - Purdue (7)
-2.9 - Michigan (7)
-2.6 - Minnesota (8)
-2.4 - Northwestern (7)
-1.5 - Illinois (6)
-1.3 - Nebraska (8)
-0.3 - OSU (6), Maryland (6)

 

[RUich]

As Choppin points out, our style of play is going to generate more fouls than one that is not aggressive. It appears that, at times, it generates a LOT more fouls than our opponents.
One factor has to be that the refs know what to expect from Rutgers and they are ultra focused on calling anything close to a foul.
Let's face it, CVS is a defense person and you are going to sink or swim with it.

 

[APKnight]

Well I guess the league has a roladex of officials to choose from when they want to put the screws to RU.

 

[dconifer0]

As I touched on briefly in the original post, foul disparity in a vacuum isn't a great measure -

I admire your analysis, but this is quite the understatement...

 

[RUChoppin]

I admire your analysis, but this is quite the understatement...

It was all predicated on the Iowa game thread - people were grumbling about Napier and the foul disparity, and someone suggested looking back to see how lopsided her games were in the past.

It's very hard to see very much about officiating in the box score, as it only tracks one part of officiating without any specificity, and it lacks any sort of context. The best you can hope for is to see some sort of trend over time, but even that really takes a far larger sample than we have to be meaningful.

Napier's 21 games is the biggest sample size we have for any one ref, and it turns out she's not so far from our average across all refs. It's possible that in her case familiarity has bred contempt.

The Iowa outlier was interesting to me, though - especially seeing that they are an outlier for us, and we're an outlier for them. There's just something about that matchup that leads to a big gap in foul calls.

 

[dconifer0]

It was all predicated on the Iowa game thread - people were grumbling about Napier and the foul disparity, and someone suggested looking back to see how lopsided her games were in the past.

It's very hard to see very much about officiating in the box score, as it only tracks one part of officiating without any specificity, and it lacks any sort of context. The best you can hope for is to see some sort of trend over time, but even that really takes a far larger sample than we have to be meaningful.

Napier's 21 games is the biggest sample size we have for any one ref, and it turns out she's not so far from our average across all refs. It's possible that in her case familiarity has bred contempt.

The Iowa outlier was interesting to me, though - especially seeing that they are an outlier for us, and we're an outlier for them. There's just something about that matchup that leads to a big gap in foul calls.

Yeah, I get it, Choppin. And regardless of any potential flaws in the original data point, you did some amazing work here!