Personal Fouls and Turnovers - How Much Is Too Much?

[Ricardo del Rio]

Once upon a time, long, long ago, I became frustrated by the number of personal fouls and turnovers, which were committed by my favorite team, Wichita State Shockers.

For the years 1998, 1999 and 2000, the Shockers committed on average 23, 25 and 23 personal fouls per game respectively. For the same years, the Shockers committed on average 14, 17 and 15 turnovers per game respectively.

So, I set out to determine what an acceptable level of fouls and turnovers should be. I decided that the best gauge would be the performance of winning teams in the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament. Please note that I am referring to the winners of each game and not just to the winner of the tournament.

I studied the games for the years of 1998-2000, I collected personal foul and turnover data by the winner in each of 63 games for each year. I summed the total number of fouls by winning teams and divided by 63 to obtain an average per game. I did likewise for turnovers.

A summary of my findings are as follows:



Since the Shockers have a propensity for fouling, I dug this information out of the archives to refresh my memory.

I realize that from a probability and statistical analysis perspective, the findings may have some short comings. Nevertheless, it does give one some idea of the performance in the subject areas by the better teams in championship play.

It is quite amazing that the range of the numerical results is so small. In fact, if I had not performed the data collection, I probably would not have believed the results.

[MTXE]

Smart on the defensive end, aggressive on the offensive end.

[dregn]

Do you have the data per round of the tournament? My guess is as the rounds move on and the teams are more evenly matched and games are closer that those numbers may go slightly up. I still think those numbers would be much lower then the Shockers of those years as they were often over matched which tends to make players foul more and turn the ball over more.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Do you have the data per round of the tournament? My guess is as the rounds move on and the teams are more evenly matched and games are closer that those numbers may go slightly up. I still think those numbers would be much lower then the Shockers of those years as they were often over matched which tends to make players foul more and turn the ball over more.

I do have the raw data still.

If I get motived, I will run the numbers.

Your point, however, makes sense.

[ShockerPrez]

I would love to see these figures by conference.

I would almost be willing to bet real money that the Valley is higher than average fouls per game.

[shockball]

In 19 games this year we've been whistled for 378 fouls and our opponents for 333 fouls. That's almost 20 per game for us and about 17.5 for the bad guys.

I think we usually control the tempo and try to speed up the game. We usually have more depth than our opponents so we aren't more handcuffed than they are. Maybe we can keep up the pressure and be a little wiser on defense.

In the CU game it bit us. We had some stupid fouls. Just my opinion.

[im4wsu]

Do you have the data per round of the tournament? My guess is as the rounds move on and the teams are more evenly matched and games are closer that those numbers may go slightly up. I still think those numbers would be much lower then the Shockers of those years as they were often over matched which tends to make players foul more and turn the ball over more.

I do have the raw data still.

If I get motived, I will run the numbers.

Your point, however, makes sense.

How does this "winner" number differ from the "loser" number?

[im4wsu]

Here are the foul stats for WSU thus far this season.



Something seems just a bit strange here. In MVC games only, WSU is called for more fouls (20.1 vs 19.8) and the opponents are charged with fewer fouls (16.1 to 18.3). That's a 2.5 foul differential. Does this mean that all other teams adjust to the MVC officials better than WSU?

But notice there are fewer fouls called in the MVC games. I think this is presumed--the MVC "let's em play", except for WSU perhaps?

Just for a comparison, I prepared the same summary for Creighton:



CU gets 2.1 fewer fouls in MVC vs Non-MVC games while their opponents get 1.3 more, a differential of 3.4. At home, CU gets a full 4.0 fewer fouls and their opponents are hit with 1.4 more.

Is there really anything resembling bias behind these numbers?

[dregn]

Might it be the different styles of the coaches?

In '06-'07 (Turgeon's last year) we averaged 18 fouls to our opponents 18.2 and 12 turnovers to 13.4 for our opponents and we all know how that year turned out...

For comparison sake, in Marshall's last 2 years at Winthrop they averaged around 17 fouls per game (18 in conference) compared to 19 and 18 for the opponents and averaged approx 13.5-14 turnovers per game compared to almost 17 for opponents.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Teams like Creighton and Northern Iowa place emphasis on minimizing fouls.

WSU, SIU, and Evansville, not so much.

In past years, Drake could be toss into the first group with CU and UNI.

The key, I believe, is the avoidance of dumb fouls. In the last two WSU games, the Shockers had a foul in the back court.

In the last home game, David was frustrated and committed an extra dumb reach in foul in the fore court.

[Shocker85]

I don't know if there is a way to support this with data, but it seems the Shocks get called for blocking/illegal screen fouls on offense each game more than their opponents. A couple of those each game contributes to the differential. Illegal screen fouls fall in the 'dumb foul' category, IMO.

Maybe this is a 'homer' perception on my part, but maybe not. Perhaps there's something in the screening technique that Marshall and staff uses that the officials don't like and watch for. Or maybe we just use more screens in our sets than most teams.

Or maybe I'm full if shat.

--'85.

[im4wsu]

Might it be the different styles of the coaches?

In '06-'07 (Turgeon's last year) we averaged 18 fouls to our opponents 18.2 and 12 turnovers to 13.4 for our opponents and we all know how that year turned out...

For comparison sake, in Marshall's last 2 years at Winthrop they averaged around 17 fouls per game (18 in conference) compared to 19 and 18 for the opponents and averaged approx 13.5-14 turnovers per game compared to almost 17 for opponents.

But Marshall's coaching style doesn't change for MVC vs OOC games, does it? Does Diana's change for conference games? For that matter, do the opponents of each change their coaaching styles because they're playing CU or WSU?

[Capitol Shock]

This may have been discussed on another thread but I heard that two of the three refs from our last game with CU officiated the Texas / KSU game last night.

By many accounts one of the roughest college games in recent memory yet was never a free throw parade. Can anyone tell me why this is?

Why does this game receive different treatment than our last game?

[Shoxfan11]

This may have been discussed on another thread but I heard that two of the three refs from our last game with CU officiated the Texas / KSU game last night.

By many accounts one of the roughest college games in recent memory yet was never a free throw parade. Can anyone tell me why this is?

Why does this game receive different treatment than our last game?

This is EXACTLY what I'm wondering, too.

[im4wsu]

This may have been discussed on another thread but I heard that two of the three refs from our last game with CU officiated the Texas / KSU game last night.

By many accounts one of the roughest college games in recent memory yet was never a free throw parade. Can anyone tell me why this is?

Why does this game receive different treatment than our last game?

Perception is wonderful, isn't it?

Texas 27 PF; KjSU 22 = Total 49 with 54 FTA
WSU 25 PF; sCUm 16 = Total 41 with 48 FTA.

Some of UT's 27 were last ditch effort, so subtract 3 PF and 6 FTA, guess what? Was there different treatment? Does WSU play rough, but not sCUm?