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I posted this in the Clemson post game thread, but I believe we might want to consider this for a front page blog post:
We lost the game at Clemson because we stunk. Having said that, I did some analysis about NC State games Luckie has called and saw some eye opening trends:
Luckie has called 5 NC State games so far this year. He has called 1 game for UNC and 2 for Duke and 3 for UVA this season. He has called 6 for WF.
Luckie called the Pitt, first WF game, FSU game and Clemson game. Luckie also called Central. NC State is 1-4 in those games.
The games where Luckie officiate have other outliers for NC State in many categories. First, let’s look at total fouls. In the 4 ACC games that Luckie called, NC State had 82 fouls called against it versus the opponents’ 73. In all other ACC games, NC State has had 155 fouls called against 177 for opponents. So in Luckie called games, we foul 9 times more, but in all other games, we foul 22 times less. That lower fouling would seem to coincide with our more passive defensive style.
In the 4 ACC games that Luckie worked in ACC play, NC State shot 71 free throws versus 115 for opponents. In the rest of its games, NC State shot 192 free throws to opponents’ 196. We’re to believe we’re roughly even versus all other ACC opponents (including UNC and Duke), yet were -44 in games Luckie has called?
More interesting is how calls against an individual player can influence the outcome of the game. NC State has had 8 players foul out this season, but 3 times the player has been Warren. Warren plays our most minutes, so he admittedly gets the most opportunities to foul, but he also plays out on the wing where there is less contact, and he doesn’t pick up a lot of offensive fouls. Tellingly, 3 of the 5 games Luckie worked, Warren fouled out. Those were the ONLY games all year that he has fouled out all season. We’re to believe that TJ Warren is a fouling machine when Luckie is on the whistle who is disqualified at a 60% pace, yet never fouls out the rest of the year? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I’ve always argued that it is hard for dirty officiating to influence the total number of fouls in a game. It’s too easy to catch that obvious discrepancy. It is a little easier to change whether a foul call generates free throws (see the Syracuse game), though people are likely to spot that. The biggest influence is changing who gets called for the fouls. If one team’s best player is ineligible, then they’re far more penalized than if another player’s scrub is out, or they have 5 fouls evenly distributed.
There’s an ax to grind there. It’s pretty obvious. One just needs to look at the stats. Deb should do something about this.
If one looks at the stats, he can also find pro-UNC bias in officiating. It’s been staggeringly bad in the Williams tenure when looking at tempo based statistics. Duke’s gotten the second best benefit of the whistle and their outlier is based on doing analysis when one looks at statistics based on the percentage of offense that comes from the 3 pointer. Duke’s bias hasn’t been quite as bad as the average fan thinks.
This is part of why I increasingly dislike college basketball.
Who is calling the fouls in Luckie officiated games? I’d like to see the stats on this. It’s not just Luckie. Are you suggesting he has some kind of influence over his crew, to the detrimate of State?
Wulfpack: I’m suggesting that there are trends related to NC State when Jamie Luckie is on the floor that cannot be ignored particularly when they are cross analyzed against larger data sets. One does not have to know the exact mechanism to be able to see that they exist.
As fans, we’re our own worst enemy when we try to ignore the statistics and try to “reason” a view one way or another. All the individual plays can be examined for intent, and one could probably argue them one way or another. I don’t think you can argue against the larger trends.
I attempted to find out who called the individual fouls by looking at the play by plays. We could look at who called the fouls on Warren or who called fouls associated with shooting free throws, but I couldn’t find the play by play that included the official. If anyone knows where that might exist, I’ll gladly do some digging. I’m not going to go back and watch all 5 of those games again right now.
I also checked in the games that Luckie officiated this year. Let’s look at the players who fouled out:
Central:
– Warren, Lee, Turner, Freeman fouled out, Anya and Lewis had four.
– Central had one player foul out and 4 guys with 4Pitt:
– NC State had 5 guys with 3 fouls. Warren was one of those 3.
– Pitt had 1 player with 3 fouls.Wake Forest (loss):
– NC State had Warren foul out and had Vandy, Washington and Freeman with 4.
– Wake had four guys with 4.FSU:
– NC State had Warren foul out and had Turner and Vandy with 4.
– FSU had no one with over 3.Clemson:
– Warren had 4.
– No one on Clemson had over 3.So, let’s look at the trends.
Fouling out: NC State – 6. Opponents – 1.
Four fouls (outside of anyone who fouled out): NC State — 8 players. Opponents — 8 players. Basically a wash.
Warren’s average fouls under Luckie: 17 total fouls so average of 4.2 fouls per game.
Warren’s average fouls in all other games: 47 total fouls so average of 2.24 fouls per gameIf we can’t look at those things and see Luckie’s impact, then……..
Rye, I’ve been looking at the very same thing and have run into the same problem that no one records who makes the foul call so you’re left with a team of officials to get the numbers from and that makes it impossible to see how many fouls a ref actually calls.
I’ve got another scenario that most people don’t think about where they will call roughly even fouls for not only the team but the star players and can still effect the outcome of the game. You call quick fouls early in each half on one star player and reduce his playable minutes and wait until the end of each half to whistle the other star player. One can play without fear of committing a foul and being sent to the bench. The other, when he’s on the court, has to play in fear of picking up another foul, thus hurting not only his defense where he gives up easy baskets but also can’t afford a cheap offensive foul either.
Don’t forget the ACCT and the Karl Hess tribute by Luckie, Eades, and Clinton. If people think Officials don’t carry grudges then they haven’t been paying attention.
I’m not saying there isn’t anything there, but there’s one obvious trend I think you’re ignoring. With the exception of Wake, all those games are against strong defensive teams which we have struggled against all year. UNC, SU & UVA are three other losses against good defensive teams. When guys get frustrated on offense they often try to make things happen on defense which can lead to more fouling.
I’m no fan of Luckie, but these are teams we would expect to struggle against (minus Wake) given our offensive struggles.
Fact: Every last official was to tribute Hess until intervention.
Fact: Sean Hull was on the floor for Pittsburgh and Wake.
See Sean Hull Syracuse.
I don’t care for Hull…I watch his work.
I reject that stat trend, simply because it, indeed, doesn’t tell you whose whistle is tooting.
I’m not high on FT comparisons, either, because it does not reflect missed front ends of the one and one.
I’m even less pleased with vulgarity being flung around at those who refuse to piss and moan on every foul, or lack of, in every , single, game.
… not that it matters to anyone else… but…
during those two and half days with no power ’cause of last week’s ice storm…I GOTT lucky … twice….
Go figure.
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!I reject that stat trend, simply because it, indeed, doesn’t tell you whose whistle is tooting.
I think that you could work around this if you had enough data. But Luckie only called 5 State games.
I’m not high on FT comparisons
I agree. The issue here can not be addressed with numbers. The real issue is incorrect calls (block vs charge), missed fouls, and phantom fouls. The answers to those issues can’t be found on a stat line anywhere.
However, there are incidents that lead me to dread certain officials. The “KH” on the shoes is very telling (Luckie). The Corchiani/Gugglioti incident is telling (Hess). The technical foul on the bench for the water boy wiping off the court during the ACCT is very telling (2004 vs UMD – somebody help me with the name). These all suggest frames of mind that are inconsistent with unbiased officiating.
For Luckie, a ACC “in conference” game involving NC State this season results in 4 more fouls per game than his other ACC “in conference” games.
Luckie has officiated 17 conference games this season. Four of them have involved NC State. If this were randomly assigned, with a 15 team league, he’d be at 2-3 for us (because we’d either be home or away in those games).
A game called by Luckie involving NC State involves an average of 22 fouls against NC State. That is 2 fouls per game higher than the next highest number of average fouls called on a team. Of teams that Luckie has called 3 or more games for, the average number of fouls against any one single team (outside of NC State) is 17 fouls per game. In games Luckie officiates, an average of 5 more fouls per game are called against NC State than on any other team.
Of all the games that Luckie has been involved in, NC State has the highest standard deviation of fouls called against them of any team. He calls 5 more per game on us than anyone else.
That is consistent regardless of whether we are at home or on the road. There’s only a .2 foul per game difference. We’re getting our 22 and Warren is getting his 4.2.
I am curious, if there is a true bias, what are the theories for the bias? How did it come to be? Why don’t we have the respect of (some) officials? Serious question.
For Luckie, a ACC “in conference” game involving NC State this season results in 4 more fouls per game than his other ACC “in conference” games.
I don’t see how this is significant unless you can prove that all teams commit about the same number of fouls. But this snippet from your first post could be more significant.
In the 4 ACC games that Luckie called, NC State had 82 fouls called against it versus the opponents’ 73. In all other ACC games, NC State has had 155 fouls called against 177 for opponents.
State was also 1-3 in those ACC games called by Luckie. Did State foul more because they were trying to catch up in the losses? Or were they losing because of Luckie?
I would love to prove a bias in the ACC officiating. But I don’t think that it will be as easy to prove as a lot of people think.
I would love to prove a bias in the ACC officiating. But I don’t think that it will be as easy to prove as a lot of people think.
Don’t tell Rick D:
For Luckie, a ACC “in conference” game involving NC State this season results in 4 more fouls per game than his other ACC “in conference” games.
I don’t see how this is significant unless you can prove that all teams commit about the same number of fouls. But this snippet from your first post could be more significant.
In the 4 ACC games that Luckie called, NC State had 82 fouls called against it versus the opponents’ 73. In all other ACC games, NC State has had 155 fouls called against 177 for opponents.
State was also 1-3 in those ACC games called by Luckie. Did State foul more because they were trying to catch up in the losses? Or were they losing because of Luckie?
I would love to prove a bias in the ACC officiating. But I don’t think that it will be as easy to prove as a lot of people think.
VAWolf82: I took that “in conference” view because I knew those that didn’t want to see would make arguments like teams out of conference are typically unbalanced in talent level. There’s a lot of “excusing away” data, so I was taking a slice that was the best chance of comparing like teams.
I would agree. Some of the first post information is staggering. I was just adding the additional data as people requested it or as I felt it was pertinent.
The sample size is large enough to note a disparity. If one game, it is a fluke. Over 5 games, looks more like a trend.
Officials are human and have biases. I know, I umpired for years. You have players you like and players you dont like, and while that never consciously takes a part in the decision making process, it does happen subconsciously. When you make the calls, you call what you see and hope you are being fair. Shall we do some psychological studies on seeing what you want to see and not seeing what you dont want to see? None of us really want to know the results of that study but let’s just say we all are biased and it does affect our subconscious.
I agree with you about the sample size of 5 being too small. That’s the one thing that makes it a bit tougher to “prove.”
I do think we can compare those as a sample though against the larger data set. If nothing else, they’d show up as outliers because they’re so far statistically off. In and of itself, that is saying something.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. When Luckie officiates NC State this season, we have had 1.2 players per game foul out. When Luckie does not officiate NC State, we have had 0.095 players foul out. That means that we’re 12 times as likely to have a player foul out with Luckie officiating. While the N of 5 is small, for Luckie to get back to the “norm” of the larger sample (21 other games), he’d have to officiate about 60 more games for us without anyone fouling out.
I would have to dust out the books and churn a bit more math to give “power” to this. It’s honestly been years.
You could increase the data set by including more seasons. But don’t go back into the Lowe era…no one wants to revisit that data. (On second thought, a statistical inflection point after the Hess tribute would be very, very interesting.)
What site are you using to get the data?
statsheet.com says that Karl Hess has called less than 3 State games this year. Interesting.
VaWolf82: I’m using Statsheet mostly.
I’ve looked at lines and over/under using some of the Vegas book sites. I can’t spot a trend there tied to Luckie that is obvious, but then I also don’t know what might be the “right” outcome that it’d be correlated against. It’s not like on a NC State game with Luckie, you take the over, or you take us not to cover. When people manipulate the betting though, they’re not that obvious.
You could look at previous seasons, but I tend to think that the smoking gun is the sneaker incident. Let’s say that any bias is backlash as a result of being mad at Hess (which is giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’re just mad about their friends). This is why I’ve been focusing on post event.
I also think that the “sneaker gang” guys were on their best behavior last season with respect to NC State. Anything contrary would have been way too obvious.
I expected to start seeing things this year. We underachieved last year, Gott is taking on water and we were expected to stink this year. Why not add in a little more adversity if you’ve got an ax to grind? It’s also easier to hide because we’ve got such low expectations.
If people think I’m looking too hard or just trying to see something, it is in part because I knew what was happening in the NBA with the officials prior to it coming out. I was in no way involved, but I knew of people who benefited. I don’t have names, or anything that would be part of a legal proceeding, but I knew that the games were being manipulated by the officials, how it was being done, and that people knew of it and profited.
I don’t for a second think that it doesn’t happen in the ACC. There’s way, way, way too much money involved to think otherwise. There are macro level things at a league level that would motivate Swofford and crew, including keeping the league together, renegotiating TV contracts, ensuring high seeding in the NCAA tournament to push as many teams possible deep into the tournament, etc.. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do the exact same thing if I were Swofford an faced with the same inputs.
That’s why I was most surprised that the “Sneaker Gang” wasn’t all fired. A swift move by the Swoff would have been a token gesture of fair play to sweep things under the rug. I suspect these guys are just in too deep.
While I’m bringing up the NC State/Luckie thing, the UNC/Roy tempo based stats are even more anomalous. I looked into that a couple of years back and the data was just staggering.
As a fan though, to just sit here and ignore the obvious, or make statements like “well, if we only played better defense” is almost ostrich like. There’s way, way too much money involved for it to just be that simple. This is big business, and big business is always “grey.”
Someone asked to look at these 5 games. The argument is that we were 1-4, thus were playing from behind and thus naturally would have fouled more. Here’s a look at that:
NCCU: That game was nip and tuck. Somehow we fouled at such an ungodly rate that we brought in walk ons not only to play the overtime, but also to take the game tying shot. It was a foul fest on both sides, but the team with more talent, playing at home somehow had 4 players foul out and 2 other players with four fouls, while the “lesser” team had 1 player foul out. Hmm.
Pitt: NC State starts up 17-2 and leads by 8 at the break. Between the time we took the 17-2 lead and Pitt tied the game, we were called for 10 fouls and Pitt 9. How exactly was the team who was playing for behind getting called for more fouls?
Wake Forest: Another foul fest. NC State was actually up 8 at halftime. From that point, NC State fouled 16 times to Wake’s 13. Again, which team was behind and playing catch up? How exactly did that game end? That’s right, on an egregiously bad missed travel call.
FSU: We won this one and led most of the game. There were anomalies there though. We took a 50-43 second half lead. From that point forward, we committed 10 fouls to FSU’s 5. Warren picked up his 3rd and 4th fouls with the game in the balance at the 8 minute mark of the second half. He fouled out with 1:36 left and the game still in the balance. Again, which team was playing from behind?
Clemson: We stunk period. We were up by 1 at halftime thanks to a late push and got blown out in the second half. We needed no help from the officials to lose this one. This is the one game that supports the claim that the frustrated team playing from behind fouls more. We fouled 12 times in the second half to Clemson’s 8.
So, in summary, in 4 out of the 5 games, the team that was trailing actually committed fewer fouls trying to play catch up. The one team that didn’t was NC State.
^Think this is interesting, rye. It’s hardly surprising that Hess’s friends may have an axe to grind. But as others point out, there are many variables at work here, and quite a few assumptions. First, we’re not a good defensive team. We weren’t last year. Gott’s teams aren’t typically good on that end. That doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily “passive.” In my mind, it means they’re fundamentally weak in multiple areas. I’d like to know, not so much how our foul situation stacks up with and without Luckie, but rather, how does Luckie officiate other games? Is there a significant difference between how he calls our games and other teams? Does he tend to call more fouls? If we get Luckie again, I look forward to an in-game analysis.
Whiteshoes67: When he is involved in a game this season, 5 more fouls against NC State than against any other team he calls a game for. His crews average calling 17 fouls against a team. They average 22 fouls against NC State. That’s 29% higher than his normal.
I don’t debate that Gott doesn’t focus on defense, but I think calls work both ways. I actually contend that overall fouls work out about the same and they’re solely based on tempo all things being equal.
Think about it this way. We practice something. Evidently we don’t practice defense. Okay, that’s fine (though I don’t believe that, but that’s another thought). That means we must spend our practice time on offense. Getting to the line is a key part of that because the easiest and best way to score is when the clock isn’t moving. Therefore we should be getting fouls on the other end and there shouldn’t be this disparity. We may hack away on defense, but surely that means that our offense would generate fouls on the other side because all we focus on is offense. Should be about a wash, huh?
Here’s another way to look at it. Of all the teams in the NCAA, we get almost the highest percentage of our points from 2 point shots, and almost the lowest percentage of shots from 3 point shots. As a general rule, two point attempts are close to the rim, involve more contact and result in more fouls. Teams shooting the 3 should get fewer fouls because of more spot up shots. That’s what we always heard under HWSNBN right? Oddly, it doesn’t seem to work out that way.
I’m so tired of hearing this crap. We need to play better PERIOD.
Ask yourselves this: Would we be whining if the tables were turned and we were playing at a higher level on a consistent basis?
Take the conspiracy theories home and go watch some chem trails! 🙂
Watching Duke and Cuse, did anyone see the flagrant foul Luckie called against Duke for Syracuse? Cusr fast break, Dawkins reaches in during the break and Luckie calls a flagrant intentional. The play against TJ was clearly more intentional or flagrant as they call it today. What a complete joke!
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