Mythbustin' Part 2: KU Can't Play Without Big 12 Refs

by Warden11 on Mar 25, 2010 6:00 AM CDT in Basketball Comment 22 comments

Immediately following the game on Saturday, I received two text messages from different people reminding me that Big 12 officials can't save the Jayhawks in tournament games. As pissed as I was at the time, I didn't pay any attention to the comments and went on with the mourning. Then later in the week as I was chatting with our editor, he brought up the exact same question. My response was something along the lines of "I don't even want to think about that because what happens if it's true?" So, you can imagine the kind of excitement I had in researching this post in my effort come up with a "BUSTED" conclusion.

In searching for some type of answer to this question, I gathered up data from 2003 to the present. The numbers I looked at include conference play only for each year and tournament games from each year. Stats used to see if Big 12 officials might help Kansas included fouls on KU's opponents, KU's team fouls, KU free-throw attempts, and KU's free throw rate. Before I get to the numbers, I do want to add two big disclaimers to everything that follows:

Small sample sizes for the tournament games but it's all the available data relevant to Kansas. I'm not going through all Big 12 teams to see if the same effect happens to them.
Without going through play by play data it's tough to know how fouls at the end of the game can skew the numbers. For example, KU had 3 fouls in the last 30 seconds against Northern Iowa. Not sure how big of effect this might be.

The Numbers

	03-04	04-05	05-06	06-07	07-08	08-09	09-10
B12 Opponent Fouls	19	19.22	19.79	18.95	19.42	18.9	20.3
Tourney Opp Fouls	21.75	21	17	18.5	16.8	20	16

B12 KU Fouls	19.9	20.22	18.11	19.63	18.05	18.8	18.4
Tourney KU Fouls	19.25	15	25	20.5	19	15	18.5

B12 FTA	20.37	20.44	21.74	21.58	22.89	22	24.8
Tourney FTA	31	27	19	19.7	16.1	18.3	14

B12 FT Rate	35.09	38.48	39.74	36.87	41.29	42.8	44.5
Tourney FT Rate	61.3	58.6	32.7	35.8	30.5	32.4	23.9

Free throw attempts do go down in tournament play for the last four years. This is somewhat intuitive because less fouls have been called in the tournament.
This year looks like a huge difference but Kansas only shot 10 free throws against Lehigh and 18 against Northern Iowa (remember the disclaimer).
In the National Championship year, the Jayhawks shot about 6 fewer free throws a game in the tournament than they did in Big 12 play.
Free throw rate drops a fair amount in tournament play compared to Big 12 play.
Pretty sure my numbers are correct but I still find it hard to believe that KU actually fouled more than their opponents in 2003-04, 2004-05, and 2006-07. Different from what you might hear from other fans, the greatest difference in fouls per game between Kansas and their opponents in any of these years is only 1.9 fouls and that was this year.

Myth- busted or confirmed?

I'm tired of this game, too. Denver's got the football content coming!

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Comments

Looks to me that it's pretty inconsistent...

three years we had more calls, three years less, and a couple years the same.

Where the calls are coming does appear to be where the biggest change might be.

53 Conference Championships!! and now 6 IN A ROW!!! Holy Hell...Good Luck with That!!

by Owen Kemp on Mar 25, 2010 8:12 AM CDT reply actions

Sheesh

Are we really even going here? Now reffing. Seriously. The refs were pretty shitty in the Northern Iowa game (let them get away with two blatant traveling calls and three charges in the last 10 minutes alone) but still.

The “we can only play with Big12 refs” argument is stupid. We played fine without them in 2008 and 2009. We win just as many non-con games as we do conference games (not sure what refs we get for those).

We need to stop looking into all these conspiracy theories. KU shot incredibly poor from three, hit a team that was hot and lost. Thats it and thats all.

Sometimes you overachieve and go deep, sometimes you get upset and go out early. Its sports. There is a reason why there aren’t any UCLA type teams or programs anymore.

Plain and simple.

Shit happens when you win championships

by KU Grad 08 on Mar 25, 2010 8:23 AM CDT reply actions

just exploring the issues my friend...

would you rather us write 5 fluff pieces a week about how great we are and the ball just bounced the wrong way?

Like it or not, this has been a perception among fanbases around the Big 12, Warden is just putting some numbers behind it for you. And yes, it appears to be a bogus argument in my mind.

All that said, we’re done with the “conspiracy theories”, a look at ‘10-’11 and Football previews the rest of the day. Sorry you didn’t enjoy these : )

53 Conference Championships!! and now 6 IN A ROW!!! Holy Hell...Good Luck with That!!

by Owen Kemp on Mar 25, 2010 8:27 AM CDT up reply actions

Oh no I enjoyed them

But the fact of the matter to me is this

It is a perception around the Big12 because they are jealous that we beat them all the freaking time. I’d say KU gets all the calls too if my team lost to them time in and time out. KState fans were saying we got all the calls and pissing and moaning about the refs this year during one of the three games (I think it was the first one) when KState had ONE team foul and we had SIX (go back and read some Bring on the Cats threads if you don’t believe me. Pretty funny). I’m not going to trust the rest of the Big12’s perceptions when they all hate KU.

Look I want answers as much as everyone else, but if we are going to point the finger lets point it at our own team (and Northern Iowa) and not calls and stuff like that. IMHO, reffing has a lot less to do with game outcomes than we think (unless Tim Donaghy is involved).

Shit happens when you win championships

by KU Grad 08 on Mar 25, 2010 9:33 AM CDT up reply actions

and I think that's somewhat the conclusion we've come to here...

whether it’s fouls, rotation, chemistry, experience or a full court press, the fact remains that Kansas was the better team and should have been able to beat UNI.

We didn’t play well, they did. Excuses are like assholes…but we might as well let everyone chat it up about them to see where we end up. It’s not meant to be a bitch fest and all three of us made an effort to keep any personal bias out of it.

This was more for the greater community to draw their own conclusions which I think we have. Interestingly almost every time, we’ve ended up back at the same conclusion and that’s the one you mention, “our own team (and Northern Iowa)”.

53 Conference Championships!! and now 6 IN A ROW!!! Holy Hell...Good Luck with That!!

by Owen Kemp on Mar 25, 2010 9:39 AM CDT up reply actions