I hate that I get frustrated by officiating. Every coach will tell you to control what you can control. I get it. You can only play the game you’re in. That being said, sometimes it feels like officials have agendas.
Yesterday, an injury hammered Minnesota team came into Crisler. They were aggressive and energetic, which was absolutely the only shot they had.
Somebody should check my math, but prior to yesterday’s game, here are the stats I calculated on combined fouls called in Michigan’s games this season:
Min 26
Max 48
Mean 36.56
Median 36
STD Dev 5.51
18 fouls were called last night. That’s 3.37 standard deviations below the mean and 1.45 standard deviations below the prior minimum.
I didn’t do all the stats on Minnesota games, but their defensive FTA/FGA numbers are slightly worse than Michigan’s on the season, and their total fouls numbers seem in the same range as Michigan’s (26-39 range over the 15 games) PRIOR TO THE LAST 3. In the last 3 games, after the injuries started piling up, total fouls called have been 19, 17, and 18.
I can only reach 1 of 3 conclusions:
The officials agreed to call fewer fouls than normal.
The officials were directed to call fewer fouls than normal.
The officials have all had a subconscious bias causing them to call fewer fouls.
My question is: why?
Maybe it truly is subconscious. But it certainly fuels the conspiracy theorists.
They basically sat in a zone and dared Michigan to shoot over the top. Whenever Michigan got the ball into the paint, they didn’t foul because they knew they couldn’t afford to.
The game just felt bad. It felt like Michigan had a poor shooting night inside, but that’s probably just because my expectations were that more should go in. 60% on 2s isn’t way out of line.
Minnesota definitely came to play with what little they had in the way of manpower.
As unhappy as I was with the refs on Saturday (which I realize was both disingenuous of me and gauche), I really didn’t think about them last night. And that’s a compliment.
Last night would have been an extremely easy game to work. There just wasn’t a lot of banging for reasons already stated. Michigan did a good job of not holding cutters. There wasn’t much heavy screening. One team didn’t even try to rebound at one end. The lack of fouling was purely a function of the way the game was played.
There are no hidden agendas or instructions from above. This is not WWE.
Officiating was as close to a non-factor last night as any other game I can recall this year. I’d point to the zone as everyone else is for MIN. U-M is generally pretty disciplined when it comes to fouling and tries to challenge shots without committing fouls. Yax’s foul aside they either gave up open threes or closed out well. Cason’s foul to give up the and-ones was a rare instance of doing more than making guys uncomfortable near the rim. It adds up for me.
I can think of several games notable for choppy and even incoherent officiating. This wouldn’t even make the long list.
I wonder if looking back Dusty would’ve wanted to force the issue a little bit more. Couple times where the bigs looked to have a pretty good seal, but we didn’t even bother with an entry. I was also surprised (like someone else pointed out) that Dusty never really had Yax in the middle trying to beat the zone high-low.
Anyway, the 60% of our shots from three were mostly good shots so we can’t complain too much. But it did allow Minnesota to dictate the game and avoid fouling. It also opened up their one path to winning (say we shot 20% from 3 or they were closer to 50%). Thought it was amusing the way the Minnesota players dapped each other up at the end of the game…like we lost, but we made them play our way.
I thought Minnesota’s lone big man got away with a lot on screens and hip-checks. However, even in a full-strength game, I’m frequently frustrated by how reticent officials are to call illegal screens. With the refs knowing that Nebraska was out of players, I didn’t expect anything different.
The only “Larry, why?” moment I really had last night were the two continuation calls – the one that Minnesota got at the end of the first half, despite taking two full steps after contact – and the similar one Michigan didn’t get in the second half, despite only taking one step. And, I don’t think the second one was even Larry’s call (the first one was, though).
Mostly, the fouls were low because of the zone. If anything, Michigan probably got away with more than usual because the officials were trying to call the game both ways.
There were soooo few complaints in the game thread and rightfully so—it was clear watching how Minnesota plays D at the rim. They rarely leave their feet, they wall up as vertically as possible, they don’t reach or really try to contest the specific location of the ball as much as maintain their position and verticality at all costs.
