A great site for sports fans is Statsheet.com, run by Robbie Allen. On the site, you can break down all sorts of stats from sports and see what is, or is not, true.
Here’s a good example involving fouls for and against Duke from some ACC basketball statistics provided by Allen
Duke averaged 19.5 fouls in ACC play last season and its opponents averaged 19.9 in league play. So there was little difference in the number of fouls called on the Blue Devils and their opponents.
Also interesting – Duke had eight players disqualified in ACC games and its opponents had only five players disqualified. The entire chart is below:
Fouls and Ejections
|
Team
|
Opponent
|
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Boston College | 6 | 10 | 297 | 18.6 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 275 | 17.2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | |
| Clemson | 9 | 7 | 296 | 18.5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 310 | 19.4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| Duke | 13 | 3 | 312 | 19.5 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 319 | 19.9 | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| Florida State | 10 | 6 | 295 | 18.4 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 296 | 18.5 | 9 | 0 | 0 | |
| Georgia Tech | 7 | 9 | 316 | 19.8 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 300 | 18.8 | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| Maryland | 13 | 3 | 269 | 16.8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 289 | 18.1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | |
| Miami (FL) | 4 | 12 | 312 | 19.5 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 276 | 17.2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| NC State | 5 | 11 | 326 | 20.4 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 302 | 18.9 | 8 | 0 | 0 | |
| North Carolina | 5 | 11 | 256 | 16 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 313 | 19.6 | 8 | 0 | 0 | |
| Virginia | 5 | 11 | 285 | 17.8 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 253 | 15.8 | 6 | 0 | 0 | |
| Virginia Tech | 10 | 6 | 333 | 20.8 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 357 | 22.3 | 14 | 0 | 0 | |
| Wake Forest | 9 | 7 | 322 | 20.1 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 329 | 20.6 | 9 | 0 | 0 | |
Couple of things of interest that stand out to me. First, of course, it seems to dismiss the notion that Duke gets all the calls. Naysayers may say, though, that key calls in key situations still go Duke's way.
Second, Carolina was the only team with a losing conference record to commit fewer fouls than their opponents. Not sure what that means except that the Heels should have had a better conference record. But the Tar Heels shot less than 65 percent from the free throw line in conference play while conference opponents, even though getting fewer opportunities, shot more than 73 percent from the line.