Point/Counterpoint Discussion & Statistics

So I got my first real comment post (from a Duke fan - no less) and I have to say that there are some interesting topics to discuss in relation to the question of whether Dukes gets all the calls or not. I definitely appreciate that the comment was not on the level of "Whatever man, DOOK RULEZ!!" and that it talked about some legitimate phenomena. And Greg, I don't care how long your comments are. It's all good.

Let me first state that

1.) I am against any team or player getting more benefit of the doubt than any other team. I think that any ref should look at the players like robots, basically calling any illegitimate contact without biases. I don't think anyone disagrees with that, but as refs are human, so is the game.
2.) I recognize that some teams are definitely better than others. When UConn plays someone like West Connecticut Community College, UConn will go the line a lot because the opposing players will foul when UConn blows by them or outrebounds them.
3.) If your basketball program has national prominance(sp?) then it will receive more criticism than others for supposed inequities- much like the President having more criticism hurled at him than say, your average Senator.

That being said, I think that the attitude of players on a team like Duke and in the NBA wil start to resemble those of tenured professors (and I dealt with too many of those!) . A fair number of them think that they have paid their dues and can (and often will) start getting away with more than they should. The commenter (Greg) made a reference to Jordan's last championship game versus the Utah Jazz, and his last second shot that is replayed over and over on ESPN classic and NBA clip shows. Jordan clearly should have been called with the pushoff and the Jazz should have been given the ball.

I remember seeing one game where Jordan was heffing along with the Wizards and during one possession he tried to drive the ball to the basket. He took three looonng steps and was RIGHTFULLY called with traveling. The look on Jordan's face was priceless, clearly saying "how DARE you call me with traveling!" My point is here is that referee bias towards teams and players that are widely viewed as "better" is a self perpetuating culture and problem. Because these teams/players get some benefit of the doubt, it goes to their heads that they can get away with this or that. So they keep testing and testing and their habits get worse as they become more established in the league. My favorite possible example of this is that Shane Battier (called Raisin-Head or Floppier by haters) fouled out of his first NBA summer league game about as quickly as you can foul out, and he just about never fouled out in college. I'll give 4 possible reasons for this:

1.) He played the same way he played in college, except that he was actually fouling in college.
2.) He was new in the NBA, and therefore called against unfairly towards more established players.
3.) NBA summer league is called much more toughly so that the players can better learn from their mistakes and correct bad tendencies.
4.) He just fouled because he wasn't used to playing people as good as this (although NBA summer league has a lot of questionable players)

What do you believe? As an opposing fan, it had always seemed to me that Battier was moving on a lot of calls where he garnered the desired charging call. It was a pet peeve of mine.

Finally I will address the questions of statistics. What I think would be useful would be a study on emotional effects. For instance, with Top 25 teams, what is the differential of FTs per game at home and away? Can we cross reference that with the "quality" of teams that they play? Will Duke get more fouls than UNC when they play UNC at home? Do refs get frazzled by the home crowd boos on close calls? I think these would be useful statistics to track.

And for all the conspiracy theorists, did Duke have a good number more fouls than UNC to silence the media? Or were the refs scared of backlash after the FSU/Duke refs were suspended? Or did Duke just foul more? Question of the week. Weigh in if you read this.

-K