All right, here's the data. I looked at every Big Ten game of ours and charted the fouls. I removed fouls at the end of games that were intentional... for example, in the Wisconsin game we were called for 19 fouls, but four of those came in the final 1:30 to force the Badgers to the line. I only removed fouls late from the trailing team that were committed early early on in the shot clock. So when Montez Mathis committed a WTF foul against Penn State up by 4 with 14 seconds left, that's still included here.
The results: We've gotten whistled for 9 more non-intentional fouls than our opponents. Now that doesn't really say anything conclusive, as Illinois' in-your-face defense is going to foul a lot more often than Michigan's ultra-disciplined defense. Conversely, some teams are better than others at drawing fouls, like Minnesota thanks mainly to Jordan Murphy. It's not like every team "should" be at a perfect zero balance here.
For reference, Rutgers' FTA/FGA is 29.9, so basically middle of the pack. In fact, Rutgers is ranked #7 in the conference in the rate of both fouls drawn and fouls committed.
With that said, some observations:
1. The Iowa game, sigh. I felt at the time and feel now that was a poorly-officiated game. At the very very least we got zero benefit of a home whistle.
2. Being -6 over two games against Michigan State (which the numbers show foul at about the same rate we do) is kinda lame.
3. If you're interested, the home/road split is that we're -2 at home and -7 on the road. Makes sense.
4. The Penn State game is bad but not as bad as it looks. I remember it being very sloppy and physical and we committed two dumb fouls near the end. Still, even if it were -4 instead of -6, that's about as bad as it gets especially considering Penn State fouls more often than we do, on average.
5. Indiana fans maybe have a case to be about their loss to us, given that we were +4 against them and they foul less than us on average. Then again they were without two starters and two guys who barely play for them (Forrester and Moore) combined for 5 fouls in 12 minutes.
This obviously doesn't account for the dozen other things refs do that impact games (non-calls, out of bounds touches, etc) but those are obviously way harder to quantify.
Overall, my impression is that this aspect of refereeing has a very slight negative impact on us. Maybe we beat Iowa with a better whistle, but maybe we lost to Ohio State if it's a 0 or -1 instead of a +2 game. While frustrating, there are a lot more important factors but it's easier to get worked up at the refs.
The results: We've gotten whistled for 9 more non-intentional fouls than our opponents. Now that doesn't really say anything conclusive, as Illinois' in-your-face defense is going to foul a lot more often than Michigan's ultra-disciplined defense. Conversely, some teams are better than others at drawing fouls, like Minnesota thanks mainly to Jordan Murphy. It's not like every team "should" be at a perfect zero balance here.
For reference, Rutgers' FTA/FGA is 29.9, so basically middle of the pack. In fact, Rutgers is ranked #7 in the conference in the rate of both fouls drawn and fouls committed.
With that said, some observations:
1. The Iowa game, sigh. I felt at the time and feel now that was a poorly-officiated game. At the very very least we got zero benefit of a home whistle.
2. Being -6 over two games against Michigan State (which the numbers show foul at about the same rate we do) is kinda lame.
3. If you're interested, the home/road split is that we're -2 at home and -7 on the road. Makes sense.
4. The Penn State game is bad but not as bad as it looks. I remember it being very sloppy and physical and we committed two dumb fouls near the end. Still, even if it were -4 instead of -6, that's about as bad as it gets especially considering Penn State fouls more often than we do, on average.
5. Indiana fans maybe have a case to be about their loss to us, given that we were +4 against them and they foul less than us on average. Then again they were without two starters and two guys who barely play for them (Forrester and Moore) combined for 5 fouls in 12 minutes.
This obviously doesn't account for the dozen other things refs do that impact games (non-calls, out of bounds touches, etc) but those are obviously way harder to quantify.
Overall, my impression is that this aspect of refereeing has a very slight negative impact on us. Maybe we beat Iowa with a better whistle, but maybe we lost to Ohio State if it's a 0 or -1 instead of a +2 game. While frustrating, there are a lot more important factors but it's easier to get worked up at the refs.
