EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to the controversy surrounding Sean Miller’s technical foul in last year’s Pac-12 Tournament, an event in which former Pac-12 director of officiating Ed Rush reportedly placed a bounty on Miller to be thrown out or given a technical, this site will monitor the league’s officials during the course of the season through the conference tournament in March. The integrity of the game and its officiating was called into question by Rush’s actions, which ultimately led to his resignation.
The Pac-12 included two more referees last night with the first-time use of K.C. Ely and Rodrick Dixon in the Colorado-Arizona State game in Tempe.
That increases the total to 45 the number of referees used in Pac-12 play through 40 games.
The use of the referees is so varied that two of the referees utilized in the Pac-12 tournament final last year between Oregon and UCLA — Tony Padilla and Gregory Nixon — have not been assigned in the last two weeks.
Nixon’s last game was Arizona at USC on Jan. 12. Nixon has been assigned to four games this season. Padilla has only worked two games with the last being the Oregon at Cal game Jan. 9. Padilla, meanwhile, has worked six West Coast Conference games.
Michael Irving, who gave Miller the technical at the Pac-12 tournament last year, has yet to work an Arizona or UCLA game this season. He worked all three of those matchups last year. Irving has worked five Pac-12 games, including three already that included Washington.
Biggest homer?: Coaches on the road will not want to see David Hall, who leads the league with home teams having a plus-20 margin in personal fouls and plus-30 in free-throw attempts.
Thick-skinned: Through the four games Ricky Batsell has officiated, home teams have minus-42 free-throw attempts compared to road teams and minus-12 in personal fouls called.
Batsell worked the Colorado-ASU game yesterday in which the Buffaloes attempted three more free throws than the Sun Devils but went only 9 of 24 from the stripe.
The Buffaloes lead the conference with 80 more free throws attempted than their opponents. They have a plus-25 margin in personal fouls called, which also tops the conference. Colorado’s players can’t use officiating as an excuse for losing four of five games without Spencer Dinwiddie.
The following five charts involved a few hours of my time putting together data of league referees. I will update the data through the season. Here is a brief description of each:
Chart 1 and 2: Chart 1 indicates the referees who have officiated at least three Pac-12 games in the first four weeks of the season. Chart 2 lists all officials.
Within Chart 2, it first lists the years the referees have worked college basketball games per statsheet.com.
The conference record shown indicates the cumulative combined conference records of the teams at the time they played in the game called by the ref.
The “Rank” column is the number of games called that involve AP Top 25 teams. Also listed are stats related to games called by a referee’s crew: Personal fouls, average of personal fouls, disqualifications, technical fouls, free-throw attempts and free-throw attempt average a game.
Two new columns: PFDiff — Difference between fouls of home and away teams (a minus score reflects more calls made for the visitor), and FTDiff — Difference between free-throw attempts of home and away teams (again, a minus score reflects more calls made for the visitor).
Chart 3 and 4: Chart 3 indicates the number of overall games called by a ref of a particular conference team. Chart 4 has the same principle but indicates only certain locations where the referee called a game.
Chart 5: Indicates difference of calls made for a team at home compared to on the road in Pac-12 games. HPFDIFF stands for “Home Personal Foul Difference” compared calls to visitors. HFTDIFF stands for “Home Free Throw (attempts) compared to visitors. The same principle applies for when on the road for APFDIFF and AFTDIFF. The total of each category is signified with TotPFD and TotFTD.
CHART ONE: MOST-USED OFFICIALS
[csv src=http://wildaboutazcats.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Pac12RefsMostGames6.csv]
CHART TWO: ALL OFFICIALS
[csv src=http://wildaboutazcats.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Pac12RefsOverall6.csv]
CHART THREE: REFS BY TEAMS CALLED
[csv src=http://wildaboutazcats.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Pac12RefsAllGames6.csv]
CHART FOUR: REFS BY LOCATIONS CALLED
[csv src=http://wildaboutazcats.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Pac12RefsRoadGames6.csv]
CHART FIVE: DIFFERENCE OF CALLS HOME AND AWAY
[csv src=http://wildaboutazcats.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/HomeAway6.csv]
WILDABOUTAZCATS.net publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He also writes articles for Bleacher Report, Lindy’s College Sports and TucsonCitizen.com.
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