Using a technical

[MUfan12]

While I was watching the game last night I kept thinking Crean should have gotten a technical in the first half when it looked like Duke was going to get all of the calls. I know Huggins used to do this all the time at Cincy, if nothing else to fire up his team. One would think it would turn the officials agaisnt him, but it always seemed to change the whistles in his favor afterward.

I know TC isn't one to get T'd up, but I can't help but think one might have served MU well last night.

[augoman]

Al, too, used the T to great extent.  Certainly, TC should have complained much more vociferously, but, I think, short of a T.

[1990Warrior]

A technical would probably only made things that much worse.  It is possible that all of the fouls called early in the game were legitimate - if refs decide they are going to call "ticky tack" fouls from the outset it is going to hurt us more often than not.

One other point - one thing that I think we and every other college basketball team have the right to know is why was it ok for the refs to stop the game so that they could talk with coach K.  Is this written in the rules somewhere that he (and apparently no one else) has this privilege?  The odds that we play them again are prettly low, but I think that some people in the ACC might want some clarification on this.

[Tulsa Warrior]

K was clearly using this to slow the pace and impact momentum.  More power to him if he can manipulate the refs.  A true gift.

[Ready2Fly]

A technical would probably only made things that much worse.  It is possible that all of the fouls called early in the game were legitimate - if refs decide they are going to call "ticky tack" fouls from the outset it is going to hurt us more often than not.

One other point - one thing that I think we and every other college basketball team have the right to know is why was it ok for the refs to stop the game so that they could talk with coach K.  Is this written in the rules somewhere that he (and apparently no one else) has this privilege?  The odds that we play them again are prettly low, but I think that some people in the ACC might want some clarification on this.

I couldn't agree more.  I was screaming at the tv in disgust when the ref was standing next to Singler with the ball in his hands talking to coach K.  I've never seen that in my life.  His team had just gotten a questionable call in their favor, and he was still complaining!  And the ref stopped the game to listen to him.  I'm not sure how coach K gets labeled "classy," but complaining about a call you just got is anything but "classy."  Just more fuel to fire the hatred...

[Pardner]

K was clearly using this to slow the pace and impact momentum.  More power to him if he can manipulate the refs.  A true gift.

Bingo...he is the master at manipulating the refs.  He definitely was trying to slow MU down, get his defense set and give his players a chance to catch a breath.  He earns his pay with all his detailed planning and tricks. 

To that point, I did a quick comparison over 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons.  Duke averaged 17.2 fouls per game over those two years to 20.6 for their opponents--that's 3.4 less per game.  During that time, MU averaged 19.7 fouls per game (20.7 in the BE) while our opponents averaged 18.9 (18.7 in the BE).  That's +0.85 more per game for MU than their opponenets (2.1 more in the BE), or over a four foul swing vs. Duke.

Obviously, the BE is more physical, MU is very aggressive, is smaller, etc. so they accumulate more fouls.  Duke is obviously very disciplined with their fouls as they don't vary much from that average.  The gap for Duke was -4.5 in 05-06 when they had a stronger team (and the lead late where they collected fouls against them).  Yet, the differential was still high last year (-2.25) with a mediocre and young Duke team.  Coach K knows getting your team to the line gets you easy, high % points, a rest, and the other team in foul trouble (like Wed. when they went right at McNeal).  Working the officials to get the close calls only adds to the probability of success.  Hats off to Coach K.  Shame of the experienced refs for letting that happen.  But, here is a focus area for MU to improve upon.

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

Pardner,

Where'd you get your data? I've been thinking about doing some statistical analysis on this stuff. It'd be interesting to look at the foul differential for all NCAA D-1 teams to see how far Duke is away from the mean (which should equal zero, technically). Even if Duke is particularly more favored in one or even a few seasons, it *should* balance out in the end if calls are being made fairly (unless one assumes that Coach K is a phenom is teaching his kids how not to foul). I'd also like to see how far away Duke is from the mean in terms of standard deviations, etc: ie, percentage wise how many fewer teams have the foul differential or better that Duke has.

I think it'd be interesting to look the numbers over - maybe someone already has. Break's coming up in 3 weeks, I'll need something to do!

[Pardner]

Warrior
I went through the box scores on ESPN.  A bit of a pain as you have to go game by game...but go to the "schedule/results" tab on each team's home page.  There is a toggle on the top that lets you go back to 2002-2003 for box scores.

Here's MU's page to start.  If you have the time, this could be interesting.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/teamsched?teamId=269

[chefrad]

MU does play agressive ball and WILL commit more fouls. That said, remember the dust-up over Coach K's alleged advantage led to an unprecedented ACC look-see four years ago. How often do you ever see a whole conference do that?

[FrennA]

As mentioned before, MU does play an aggressive style of play and therefore are more prone to getting whisteled.  Unfortunately though, it seemed that the majority of the fouls that MU "alegedly" committed came from offensive charges and from blocks in which we were trying to draw the charge.  Usually, our defensive stlye leads to blocking fouls involving arm checks and reach in's but not the calls that were made against us Wednesday night.  Those calls were horse**** - having NOTHING to do with our defensive scheme!  People  can spin it anyway they want but that officiating job was atrocious.  I was proud to see MU keep it's composure and make a game of it, though. 

As a side note, I was actually pretty surprised by the commentating.  I expected more "one-sided" comments but it didn't seem like anything outrageous.  Quite a bit of praise for MU.  Also, they made a few low-key jabs about the officials. 

Also, I'm not sure which one I hate more - losing games due to officiating or winning games due to officiating.  I'm not saying MU would've won had we gotten a fairly officaited game, because I believe every play effects the next.  I just saying, it'd be hard to not have to go throught the effort of patting myself (as a player or fan) on the back when the job has been done already by a guy in stripes.

Geez.............I'm still REALLY REALLY PISSED about those damn refs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Oh, by the way, save your post about me being a crybaby - I got it!

[77ncaachamps]

McGuire was classic for using the technical as an IOU at the end of the game.

Maybe Crean should implement it more often as a coaching strategy.