[81alum]

I was wondering about the foul calling tonight.  Kevin noticed quickly that the refs were going to rack up the fouls. 
The tournament has 12 refs, with different sets of 3 calling games (1 game per day per ref; different groupings of refs per day).
No team is really a home team so the influence of the crowd on the officials is lessened.

So I did some stats across the games (by quarters) and the refs.
What I did: 
As I was looking at the individual officials, I credited each official the total number of calls by his/her crew in each game. 
For the stats below, i added the fouls those numbers for all officials.
Thus the total number of fouls is tripled.  Divide all numbers by three if you prefer.

Here are the (3x) fouls called against the two teams so far, by quarters:

Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Total
Loser	90	96	138	93	417
Winner	57	93	87	132	369

Granted this is a small sample, but the differentials are big enough that it makes me wonder if this pattern is real.
Approximately 50% more fouls called on the (eventual) losing team in the 3rd quarter than the other quarters.  Almost as big a differential for the winning team in the 4th quarter.

The 4th quarter differential against the winning team is due to the officials.  Obviously the winning team doesn't get tired & clumsy.  I'm sure we've all noticed officials miscalling fouls against the winning team in the 4th quarter.  I'm not a fan of that -- I don't see anything in the rule book that supports that (indeed, the rule book states that the game should be called consistently through the entire game).

But I'd like to understand the 3rd quarter.  Is it that the eventual loser usually becomes aggressive, or sloppy, in the 3rd?  Or is the skill of the eventual winner winning the officials over, resulting in getting the benefit of any call?

Also notice the first quarter for the eventual winner has fewer fouls.  My hunch is that the first quarter is probably the quarter most fairly called by the officials and also reflects the relative skill of the teams.  My hunch also is that by the second quarter, the officials are (consciously or subconsciously) trying to even out the fouls.

If the 3rd (and 1st) quarter patterns are real, I doubt that I'm the first to notice.  Does anyone know of any study on the reasons behind these patterns?  Does each official have their own pattern that is stronger/weaker for some officials?  Can coaches take such patterns into account for when to have which players in?

[The two female officials in the Syracuse-Stanford game have called the most fouls of all the officials.  The male official is a bit below the median.]

Fascinating, MT.  And by the way, you were featured prominently on at least two crowd shots during the volleyball broadcast!

I really don't get the fourth quarter.  Doesn't the losing team normally do a lot of deliberate fouls in the last minute of the game?  I would think the losing team, not the winning team, would have the most fouls in the 4th quarter.  This just seems counter intuitive.  In a very interesting way.

I wonder if some of the numbers would be reversed for games in which the ultimate loser was leading throughout the first half.  In other words, is the high number of 3rd quarter fouls for the loser due to it getting a half time pep talk and coming out and being overly aggressive?  When perhaps they would not do that if they were leading at the half?

[81alum]

I was wondering about the foul calling tonight.  Kevin noticed quickly that the refs were going to rack up the fouls. 
The tournament has 12 refs, with different sets of 3 calling games (1 game per day per ref; different groupings of refs per day).
No team is really a home team so the influence of the crowd on the officials is lessened.

So I did some stats across the games (by quarters) and the refs.
What I did: 
As I was looking at the individual officials, I credited each official the total number of calls by his/her crew in each game. 
For the stats below, i added the fouls those numbers for all officials.
Thus the total number of fouls is tripled.  Divide all numbers by three if you prefer.

Here are the (3x) fouls called against the two teams so far, by quarters:

Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Total
Loser	90	96	138	93	417
Winner	57	93	87	132	369

Granted this is a small sample, but the differentials are big enough that it makes me wonder if this pattern is real.
Approximately 50% more fouls called on the (eventual) losing team in the 3rd quarter than the other quarters.  Almost as big a differential for the winning team in the 4th quarter.

The 4th quarter differential against the winning team is due to the officials.  Obviously the winning team doesn't get tired & clumsy.  I'm sure we've all noticed officials miscalling fouls against the winning team in the 4th quarter.  I'm not a fan of that -- I don't see anything in the rule book that supports that (indeed, the rule book states that the game should be called consistently through the entire game).

But I'd like to understand the 3rd quarter.  Is it that the eventual loser usually becomes aggressive, or sloppy, in the 3rd?  Or is the skill of the eventual winner winning the officials over, resulting in getting the benefit of any call?

Also notice the first quarter for the eventual winner has fewer fouls.  My hunch is that the first quarter is probably the quarter most fairly called by the officials and also reflects the relative skill of the teams.  My hunch also is that by the second quarter, the officials are (consciously or subconsciously) trying to even out the fouls.

If the 3rd (and 1st) quarter patterns are real, I doubt that I'm the first to notice.  Does anyone know of any study on the reasons behind these patterns?  Does each official have their own pattern that is stronger/weaker for some officials?  Can coaches take such patterns into account for when to have which players in?

[The two female officials in the Syracuse-Stanford game have called the most fouls of all the officials.  The male official is a bit below the median.]

Fascinating, MT.  And by the way, you were featured prominently on at least two crowd shots during the volleyball broadcast!

I really don't get the fourth quarter.  Doesn't the losing team normally do a lot of deliberate fouls in the last minute of the game?  I would think the losing team, not the winning team, would have the most fouls in the 4th quarter.  This just seems counter intuitive.  In a very interesting way.

I wonder if some of the numbers would be reversed for games in which the ultimate loser was leading throughout the first half.  In other words, is the high number of 3rd quarter fouls for the loser due to it getting a half time pep talk and coming out and being overly aggressive?  When perhaps they would not do that if they were leading at the half?