Chief’s Briefs - Butler Edition

[RuffRuff]

Win is a win. AK with huge shots.

 

[housekeys]

It's not a conspiracy. They commit few fouls. We foul a lot. They draw a lot of fouls.

Oh yeah? Let's revisit when they come to play in Hartford/Storrs.

 

[housekeys]

We are 294th in 2PA (32.3 pg), and 56th in 3PA (27.2 pg). That's not a winning combo for putting pressure on the defense and drawing fouls. You want to draw fouls? Get into the lane more. That's not how this team has been built, however.

Put down the Basketball 101 book and watch the game.

 

[housekeys]

12 to 30 foul shots, why do so many think this is not a huge unfair issue? As in Maui, it is difficult to win when your opponent gets 250% more foul shots before the final deliberate fouls.

Fair or unfair, I don't think it is strictly a UConn thing. There is a reason playing away drops your odds of winning and there is a reason the E in ESPN stands for "electricity" . Refs are part of the total E package and they know it.

 

[tennmike]

Generally plays good D and gives us much needed length on the perimeter (huge steal late in the Gonzaga game). A little raw offensively, hit a nice 3 today, but then can throw up some wild shots. I had a bad feeling he was going to mess up that 2 on 1 break today. A lot of potential there though.

Can Abraham cover guys as well as Ross? Could you get more?

 

[Fan1978]

The veterans Karaban and Diarra made the big plays at the end along with some help from the freshman McNeeley.

12 to 30 foul shots, why do so many think this is not a huge unfair issue? As in Maui, it is difficult to win when your opponent gets 250% more foul shots before the final deliberate fouls.

Our 3 point shooting improvement (45%) was led my Karaban and McNeeley. However, Ball had an off night. The 9 point advantage we had on threes made the difference.

We need better defense from the center position and less mistakes. Screen had a double/double and was 9-9 from the foul line. That was the primary reason he was 11 points over his 6 points per game average. We had 8 fouls from our center position.

Mahaney played well and we even saw him play with Diarra some, as Chief has been advocating. Still overall his plus/minus was underwater, but it was really other guys making mistakes not him. He had 7 points and as a shooting guard with McNeeley and Karaban out there we could be really hard to defend on the 3 line with Diarra running the show and Reed giving us a post threat.

Rebounding and assists advantages, which usually indicate a UConn win, were not significant. But, a very good road win in a tough building.

If ball does not shoot well, he offers nothing but an empty boxscore. Danny needs to run plays to hit him of designed back cuts etc to keep the defense honest. Fortunately, Mahaney made some nice offensive plays today. Definitely need more of that. Screen is a very limited player and Tarris made him look good. reed needed to keep him off the block early and not sure why that adjustment was not made. I agree with chief about the ridiculous foul discrepancy. mcneeley and alex not receive the same foul treatment on their drives. Tarris and screen also were not treated fairly. It is a road game so you expect some home calls but this was ridiculous.

 

[Mets8692]

Let me ask a general question.

What happened to our lobs at the rim? Last 2-3 years I saw atleast 2-3 lobs per game, sometimes many more. It feels like that has left our system completely.

Is it simply we lack the athletic talent? Or is it poor point guard play.

On that breakaway late with Diarra and Ross, it looked like a lob angle, instead it was a late pass that should have led to a turnover if it wasn't for the refs making a call.

Hurley used to say you know a team is good when they dunk a lot. This team does not dunk a lot.

 

[NJHusky]

Ok, some more stats.

We are 294th in 2PA (32.3 pg), and 56th in 3PA (27.2 pg). That's not a winning combo for putting pressure on the defense and drawing fouls. You want to draw fouls? Get into the lane more. That's not how this team has been built, however.

Liam has been doing it more recently, and he's been relatively effective. But I'm not sure we're going to change our identity much to alter the FT disparity calculus.

But we move and cut continuously…and it appears to me that our guys are getting grabbed and bumped but they don’t get called. While if we breath on someone down low, it gets called. There are many here more knowledgeable, but it just seems that way to me

 

[coachn]

The veterans Karaban and Diarra made the big plays at the end along with some help from the freshman McNeeley.

12 to 30 foul shots, why do so many think this is not a huge unfair issue? As in Maui, it is difficult to win when your opponent gets 250% more foul shots before the final deliberate fouls.

Our 3 point shooting improvement (45%) was led my Karaban and McNeeley. However, Ball had an off night. The 9 point advantage we had on threes made the difference.

We need better defense from the center position and less mistakes. Screen had a double/double and was 9-9 from the foul line. That was the primary reason he was 11 points over his 6 points per game average. We had 8 fouls from our center position.

Mahaney played well and we even saw him play with Diarra some, as Chief has been advocating. Still overall his plus/minus was underwater, but it was really other guys making mistakes not him. He had 7 points and as a shooting guard with McNeeley and Karaban out there we could be really hard to defend on the 3 line with Diarra running the show and Reed giving us a post threat.

Rebounding and assists advantages, which usually indicate a UConn win, were not significant. But, a very good road win in a tough building.

Great analysis as usual.. As I used to tell my players "Be prepared to play against 7 men at any time"

 

[Waquoit]

This team’s maximum potential will be obtained with an improved Mahaney getting more minutes than Ball.

Some recency bias, maybe?

 

[RuffRuff]

 

[Fan1978]

Some recency bias, maybe?

How about with both playing well

 

[willie99]

Butler is 41st across D1 in committing fouls (14.7 per game). They are 29th in drawing fouls (20.2 per game).
We are 329th (19.3). We are 123 in drawing fouls (18.1).

It's not a conspiracy. They commit few fouls. We foul a lot. They draw a lot of fouls.

That's called begging the question. We argue the fouls are too one sided, you point out that the fouls are one sided

Thank you

 

[nomar]

That's called begging the question. We argue the fouls are too one sided, you point out that the fouls are one sided

Thank you

He also pointed out Butler is good at drawing fouls and not fouling. And he also pointed out in another comment in this thread that we take very few 2s, relatively.

Also, if you’re statistically horrendous at committing fouls and quite bad at drawing fouls, you really can’t chalk that all up to a national conspiracy, can you? Style of play and personnel do matter. That doesn’t mean there isn’t biased officiating exacerbating things, but you can’t wave away Mike’s stats as begging the question.

 

[Waquoit]

How about with both playing well

Folks like to chuck dudes over the side after one bad game. We need both.

 

[NoSpamHere]

The foul statistics don’t discriminate between “good” calls and “bad” calls so they’re not useful in refuting the argument that we are being unfairly judged by the refs.

 

[Hurleyman216]

The officiating is definitely lopsided and has been for most of the year. I agree with Chief on this that this team shouldn’t be ranked in the 300’s in any metric. You’re telling me we’re a top 100 defense (you can argue we might be top 50 if luck were factored in) but we foul more than almost every team in D1? Sorry, but those 2 things don’t add up. The teams that should be ranked in the high 300’s in that category should be severely physically overmatched playing against higher level competition and that is not UConn. Not saying it’s a conspiracy, but the numbers suggest something is off and not in our favor. Also, when did playing at home become a 10-12 point advantage? I don’t remember it being so difficult to win road games 5-10 years ago. Now, it seems like home teams are almost always favored even in a substantial mismatch. I’d love to see how the winning % of home teams has changed over the past 20 years because it seems like it must be going up. I think a big part of this is the officials who have inserted themselves as part of the “home team” making road wins even more challenging. Anyone who has watched much Big East bball this year knows that we are 15-20 points better than Butler, that game should not have come down to the wire.

 

[jibsey]

I have been unhappy with the refs for sure but our guards are programmed to try to steal the ball which they often do. Reach in and it’s a touch foul.

So the choice is should they continue or cut that out. Teams are driving to the rim with their guards and our guards are trying to get in front and stop that and they get called.
Samson and Reed are foul machines, and I do not have a solution to the many ways they foul. They have no business reaching in to steal balls.
Singare has given some good minutes but he can’t guard without fouling either.
But when an opposing guard goes in for a layup and there is a no touch by the defender foul that is expected rather than real, that is tough to watch.

 

[willie99]

Jumping in the Fox hole with Chief and all the others that think the fouls and free throw disparity is absurd

1) Some argue we don't drive enough. Neither Reed nor Johnson shoot jump shots, they do nothing but work the paint, their entire game is about the paint. McNeeley and Karaban are both tall players that drive frequently throughout the game. We tend to score more paint points than our opponents. Conclusion, we work the paint, we just don't get the foul calls.

2) We are one of the best teams in the country in rebounding margin. Once again proving our inside presence, and teams with an inside presence tend to get fouled more. Except UConn of course

3) We don't defend trying to steal the ball. Many of our opponents, like St John's, Marquette, Memphis... press all day and reach in all day on every possession, those are the type of teams that tend to foul more, but don't.

4) Our bigs get into foul trouble, not because they're reaching, but because they're jumping out on offensive players or setting picks. Called far more often on us than any other team. Sometimes when they have perfect defensive position they're still called for a foul.

5) We're national leaders in assists because we move and cut. Our opponents are allowed to chuck and grap us without consequence, especially compared to what they're calling in (4) above.

6) In the last minute against Memphis, the refs changed the outcome of the game by calling and over the back that didn't exist. Compounded their mistake by giving Hurley a T. Incompetent officials do that often, call a T after they screwed up. Game changer

7) The next day they don't call an over the back when McNeeley was being held down, another game changer. I'm less upset with this missed call if it wasn't for the horrific call the night before

8) Against X this week, when they overturned an out of bounds call in the closing minute. First, it took them 5 minutes to overturn the call, I think there should be a 60 second rule. If you can't see a conclusive overturn in 60 seconds, the call stands. But the replays showed part of what I'm complaining about, the X player battling for the rebound took out Reed's arm, no call. Then the loose ball was ruled off of us. Seconds later, they overturned a call in our favor and did so in record speed. The incompetent buffoon should have never awarded it to X to begin with.

9) Come March, all these fouls and free throw disparities disappear. It's NOT because we suddenly play differently, it because the games are called more consistently.

Some moments are too big for some referees. Sometimes they think they're the game, and they make hero calls. They want to show the world how good they are, when they should just be calling balls and strikes. They shouldn't have rabbit ears, but many do. I've often said some of these calls would be laughed at in sandlot games, where honor matters more. I will defend officials in one regard, some inconsistencies are not their fault. It's created by suits in conference rooms who never played the game at any level trying to legislate utopia by creating new rules