Lets talk about....fouls | Page 2 | The Boneyard
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Lets talk about....fouls

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aceboon said:
Offball grabbing/holding doesn't really get called to the level that it should across all levels of basketball for both the men and women, just look at Steph Curry in the NBA, he gets manhandled without much being called. Meanwhile alot of our fouls are from handchecking and putting forearms on guys on the perimeter and straight line dribble drives, which is easier to see. I've pointed this out before but when The Athletic published their Final Four anonymous coaches scout of the teams in both 2023 and 2024 the anonymous coaches pointed out how often UConn fouls and that opponents could take advantage of that by getting into the penalty early.
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Overall this is true.

I will say the refs also just missed some really blatant fouls against Floriday. That shirt pull on Mullins by Condon was pretty egregious.
 
Depends if we can sort out on ball and off ball fouls - yes we get a call or two on moving screens off ball, yes a few of our guys use their hands too much for another 3-4 a game.

On ball our 1:1 defense is guilty for another few while defending drives to the rim.

So all those add up to a meaningful difference in most games.

Other teams grab and hold off ball and usually get away with it (Fland didn't not but that was under the hoop).

We cleanup our discipline we inch closer to parity. Unless Breeding is reffing.
 
Hurleyman216 said:
It seems like very often (such as the 1st half last night) we get 7-8 fouls called on us very quickly and often in the act of shooting. On the flip side, once the refs realize the huge foul discrepancy we often see “make up” calls in our favor. The problem is these aren’t shooting fouls and they happen 30-40 feet from the basket on every play. So the foul numbers end up looking not so lopsided, but the fouls our opponents get called for don’t really help us. Most of our FT’s last night came from Florida intentionally fouling us at the end. I’m not sure the cause, but it’s infuriating to watch. Reed in particular got a horrible whistle last night. Seemed like he got clobbered a number of times making a move down low and all no calls, then on the flip side every time Condon or Cheniyu touched the ball in the block it was a foul on us.

The one thing that needs to change is all the grabbing and clutching that happens to us. Watch the guys guarding AK and Solo every game and they are holding their jerseys, body checking them off their routes and none of that stuff gets called. It’s what has really limited our offense so far this season.
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Chief always looks at getting into the 1st half penalty early and FT attempts as key metrics. I 100% agree Florida was grabbing and holding Solo,Mullins, Smith, Demary and AK yet few whistles.
Part of our foul issues are lack of discipline and a mismatch between our practice reality and game reality.
Then there is the John Gaffney saga. Someone who detests Hurley yet due to our weak commissioner he keeps popping up at UConn games where he has a proven track record of not being objective. In court judges are recused due to bias or a pattern of perceived bias.
 
Travelman6 said:
I remember Duke used to make more freethrows than the other team took, that was commonly sited in the early 2000s. Wouldn't mind UConn trending that way.
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Good point, winning teams generally should have more foul shot attempts due to the losing team trying to make up by grabbing etc for their dificit in talent. Yet, we are 193-213 in FT Attempts to our opponents. Plus like in the FL game, it would be even worse absent the intentional fouls at the end. I won’t give another course in the high hedge defense role to fouling given the way we play it but it constantly puts our guys in mismatches. One needs to honestly evaluate personnel - we don’t have Stephon Castle or Tristen Newton who could switch and match up well with usually 3-4 opponent players.
 
I don't know how to break it to everyone but if you think our opponents were getting away with a lot without folks being called, just wait until Big East play begins.

The conference's standard operating procedure is to let us establish credibility in out of conference games (as they cannot depend on the other ten schools), then stack the deck against us un and attempt to give good wins to whoever may beat us in a conference game.
 
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KingAG said:
Watching the games it just doesn’t feel like we foul any more than the other team. Definitely not at the discrepancy we see. The refs just suck at the collegiate level. That’s the easiest explanation
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Especially the Florida game. They play extremely physical down low. They crash the boards, they move you around, they go over your back all day long. There is no way there should be such an absurd free throw disparity. Our 10 free throws in the last minute when they were intentionally fouling make the numbers look palatable, they weren't

Officials call touch fouls 30 feet from the hoop, but allow mauling down low.

The era of thinking a foul should not be called if there is no advantage gained or lost is long gone. Now the Officials create an advantage gained or lost with half their calls
 
We put the opponent in the bonus way too quickly. We do get screwed sometimes but I think its just been a constant since Hurley has been here (I don't have stats the back it up, just my observation).
 
How many times have we heard Hurley say we have to learn to play tough defense without fouling? It seems like he say it a lot.

So he is aware of the problem. But it never seems to get solved.
 
Palatine said:
How many times have we heard Hurley say we have to learn to play tough defense without fouling? It seems like he say it a lot.

So he is aware of the problem. But it never seems to get solved.
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Seems to me this more a personnel type of thing where individuals need to not do certain things that get called for fouls. I'm sure they are told not to ..... also maybe lack of lateral foot speed to stay with man leads to some of these things.
 
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We don't draw many fouls because we don't go to the hoop all that often, and our players aren't guys who use their bodies to "draw" them. It's Silas/Solo going full speed into a 6-11 guy or AK getting beaten to the spot. Stew got hammered on one play that wasn't called for sure, though.

All in all, I think the foul whining on this board is freaking embarrassing. It's constantly the "freedom of motion" crying. Guess what? We do it, too. In fact, go to another team's forum, and you'll see them crying about how we are constantly clutching, grabbing, and setting illegal screens. I feel like almost every screen Samson/Donovan ever set was technically illegal. So basically, it's an NFL holding situation on every play. We legit got a gift, a "5" second call to ice the game. Silas blatantly pushed off for an "and-1," and there have been very fortuitous calls for us each game.

For why we commit so many fouls, it is because the system that Dan Hurley wants to employ, essentially a tight man on an island style and hedging/rotations, requires good athletes and/or smart players. We do not have great athletes and the ones that should be good defenders (Solo, Stew/Ross <-- I know both have improved) tend to be a step slow or make dumb decisions. A perfect example is Mahaney last year. I believe without question he is a smart basketball player. He is, however, slow and not very physical. So he was asked to guard on an island and would get beaten. He'd scramble to recover and body his guy into fouls. If you watch Cam early on in 24, he committed a lot of fouls before he realized how to play this type of defense and trust his rim protectors.
 
One problem with our defense is our guys are most likely used to defending the UConn offense that gets run in practice which doesn’t include a lot of drives. Then we get to a game where the other team just drives on us non-stop. We probably don’t practice or see that 1-on-1 defense as much as teams that drive the ball all the time do. We’ll see plenty of it in the Big East and I expect our defense will improve even more. Right now we have the 7th ranked defense according to KenPom and that likely still includes some data from last year where we weren’t good defensively. Also, Reed has turned into a pretty good post defender and he’s been out more than he’s been in, so the interior defense should improve as well.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
Often a topic after every game. Many complain, many others say "stop complaining"
Whatever your side, one thing is clear:
This team, as well as the two natty teams under Dan Hurley, shoots less foul shots than their opponents quite often.

Why?

Our offensive style?
Defensive style?
Lack of discipline?
Anti-UConn bias?

To claim it's a combination of these doesnt come close to explaining such huge disparities between us and the other teams.

What's going on with the whistle?
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It is because WE FOUL WAY MORE THAN OUR OPPONENTS.
 
rashadray11 said:
It is because WE FOUL WAY MORE THAN OUR OPPONENTS.
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Yes. I agree. And as @boog204 said, we may not have the quickest defenders and I don't think Dan cares. He prioritizes toughness and aggression. The reason we won is because of his defensive substitutions. This team IS very deep. A fresh legged Ross is going to be better than a wing who has to play 30 minutes. Our rotations allow us to foul (even though i don't think he enjoyed situations like Mullins got into)

But it works for us. We are disciplined enough to force a lot of shot clock violations. Id wager we are up there with the best in the country in that metric so there are times when we play great clean aggressive d.

lastly, Dan Hurley rarely complains about officiating anymore.
I think he understands.
 
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1) Our offense is designed to generate wide open looks, either at the rim or the 3-point line. Our guys do their work before they receive the ball. Other teams have adopted the 2010's Seattle Seahawks approach of constantly clutching and grabbing, knowing that the refs are afraid to call everything, especially off the ball. So the actions on which we draw the most contact, we don't get whistles. And then we just don't generate a lot of those actions (contested drives to the rim) where the refs might actually blow the whistle.

2) Our defense emphasizes physicality -- no easy buckets. A coaching mentality that preaches toughness isn't always able to dial in the savvy that goes with it (this was much worse early in the Hurley era where he was compelled to almost entirely coach effort rather than intelligence on the floor). I think we live with this to an extent.

3) Anti-Hurley/UConn bias, in the Big East and nationally. There isn't much to debate here, it's been well documented.
 
boog204 said:
We don't draw many fouls because we don't go to the hoop all that often, and our players aren't guys who use their bodies to "draw" them. It's Silas/Solo going full speed into a 6-11 guy or AK getting beaten to the spot. Stew got hammered on one play that wasn't called for sure, though.

All in all, I think the foul whining on this board is freaking embarrassing. It's constantly the "freedom of motion" crying. Guess what? We do it, too. In fact, go to another team's forum, and you'll see them crying about how we are constantly clutching, grabbing, and setting illegal screens. I feel like almost every screen Samson/Donovan ever set was technically illegal. So basically, it's an NFL holding situation on every play. We legit got a gift, a "5" second call to ice the game. Silas blatantly pushed off for an "and-1," and there have been very fortuitous calls for us each game.

For why we commit so many fouls, it is because the system that Dan Hurley wants to employ, essentially a tight man on an island style and hedging/rotations, requires good athletes and/or smart players. We do not have great athletes and the ones that should be good defenders (Solo, Stew/Ross <-- I know both have improved) tend to be a step slow or make dumb decisions. A perfect example is Mahaney last year. I believe without question he is a smart basketball player. He is, however, slow and not very physical. So he was asked to guard on an island and would get beaten. He'd scramble to recover and body his guy into fouls. If you watch Cam early on in 24, he committed a lot of fouls before he realized how to play this type of defense and trust his rim protectors.
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I agree. We don’t drive to the hoop enough. And, we don’t force TOs and get out and run enough either.
 
Coach J said:
It seems like forever we get called for at least 1 moving screen a game by our post players at the 3 pt. line. Against Fl last year in the tournament, we had a key made 3 wiped out because of one Samson Johnson got called for. It's easily correctable and it's one less foul before our opponents are in the bonus. Something we need to limit.
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Why would we correct something that gets called once a game but gives us an advantage 30 other times a game? We set illegal screens on purpose in many cases (though the Reibe one against Florida was egregious).
 
This made be difficult to understand. We have certain players who can't defend well without fouling. When those players are guards, they put extra pressure on our centers who can't well without fouling.

Reed has improved noticeably on this front but when he is up against a larger front line (ours is less brutish by design) he's going to pick up extra fouls.

Last year, he and Johnson were both foul machines. Reibe looks like he's more solid on the defensive end than Johnson was. We should only have real foul problems against bigger teams similar to Florida when Koroma can't be used to steal a few.

In the back court, we have two guys who can defend decently and one that's better than before and one that needs to figure it out.

On the wings, AK, JS and JR have figured it out but their will be games where each picks up early or cheap fouls that cause issues.

Early and cheap fouls are really the problem here. They can be aware but that's about it. A lot comes down to rotation mistakes and unfriendly whistle.

It was a much bigger problem in previous years, especially last year.
 
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HW611 said:
Personally, there’s easy ways to defend yourself from it and draw attention to it. If we let guys freely get into our shirts and do nothing about it that’s on us.
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We need to sell the grabbing more. Make the cut and throw your head and shoulders back. Flail your arms. Do whatever you can to draw attention to it.

Alex should try to backdoor on that cut -- going over the screener helps the defender conceal the grab, but if he cuts hard the other way it will be clear as day that he's being held.

If that doesn't work, hit their arms/hands when they grab you. If they keep grabbing your shirt their arms should be so sore by the end of the game that they can't raise them up to shoot.
 
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