I thought you’d all get a kick out of a study on (alleged) referee bias in favor good teams the good folks at Statsheet.com did for the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ’s David Biderman has the results today:
On average, Top 25 teams draw about two more foul calls per game than their opponents, according to Robbie Allen, an information technology author who runs the Web site StatSheet.com. After scanning more than 4,000 boxscores from the past five years, he concludes that 82% percent of teams that finished the season in the Top 25 drew more fouls per game than their opponents, and last year those teams got 9% more whistles in their favor. Connecticut led the way, drawing 8.3 extra fouls per game.
Alert the conspiracy theorists! But Biderman talks us down from the ledge right away:
But before you accuse the officials of a grand conspiracy to suppress the underdogs, consider that a team like UConn got more foul calls because, well, it was really good.
I bet someone has performed a similar study (or many of them) on NBA refs and whether they favor good teams, though most of the attention seems to be on whether the refs favor a) star players; and b) marquee teams in the playoffs.
What do you guys think?
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NBA officials trying to ruin/throw the games? Really? Did you know part of the NBA crews are convicted felons?
I do have to say they have been better this year, but they honestly are no different than the replacement crew.
I am still pi$$ed over the charge/block calls against the Celtics against Phoenix. They took the zap out of the comeback, arggg….
There are some star calls, yes, but it’s not as ridiculous as a lot of people think. Guess what, it’s much harder to guard guys like Wade, Bryant, and LeBron without fouling because they’re incredibly dangerous, skilled players. Same thing applies to teams – the good teams are good partially because they can draw fouls, and drawing fouls helps to make you a good team.