This season has been very frustrating for Maryland fans. A lot of it is because of the way Maryland plays, but recently, I've noticed some poor officiating by the referees. As all of you know, Maryland will be leaving the ACC for the BIG 10 next year, and the ACC isn't too happy about the move. It seems like the refs are showing how the A.C.C. feels with their officiating. I noticed it in yesterdays game against PITT. Yesterday, for the first time in a while, I was pretty happy with the way Maryland was playing, but I was very frustrated with the refs. So today I was wondering if the A.C.C. really has been fair with us with the officiating in league play. I looked back at the amount of fouls called in conference and big non- conference games and who was officiating the games. I looked at the seven biggest non- conference games based on RPI(GW/ OSU/ PROV/ UNI/ ORST/ UCONN) and all seven conference games. I looked only at the big non- conference games, because I wanted the competition to be similar to the competition Maryland sees in the ACC. Below are the three most important things that I found in the data. Below that is the data chart.
1. In the big non- conference games, Maryland has been called for the seven more fouls than their opponents. In conference games, Maryland has been called for 22 more fouls than their opponents. That doesn't seem right...
To be fair, maybe Maryland has just started to hack more, but thats probably not completely the case. Many of the A.C.C. refs also officiated non-conference games. Not surprisingly, they were pretty fair in those games. They had nothing to gain. In those games when there was an A.C.C. ref, the A.C.C. refs called 2 less fouls on Maryland than their opponents! A.C.C. refs have called 24 more fouls on Maryland in conference play than non-conference play. That could very easily turn into 30 points for Maryland's A.C.C. opponents. If the officiating had been fair, who knows what Maryland's conference record would be right now. It might not make a difference. On the other hand, Maryland might have been able to pull out a win against State where they were called for ten more fouls than them. Also, we might have been able to pull the upset yesterday, if we weren't called for nine more fouls than PITT.
2. When Maryland fouls less than their opponent, they usually win.
Out of the 14 games I examined, Maryland is 4-2 when fouling less than their opponent. Maryland is 1-7 when fouling more than their opponent.
3. Some A.C.C. refs are worse than others, and some are better.
Based on which refs have officiated games where more fouls have been called on Maryland in conference play, here are some names that you don't want to hear officiating a Maryland game and the amount of more fouls called on Maryland than their opponent : Ed Corbett(16), Karl Hess(11), Tim Nestor(10), Raymond Styons(9), Dwayne Gladen(9), and Gary Maxwell(8).
Based on which refs have officiated games where more fouls have been called on Maryland's opponent, here are some names that you want to hear officiating and the amount of less fouls called on Maryland than their opponent: Bryan Kersey(5), Ray Natili(3), Jeff Clark(2), Les Jones(2).
This data doesn't include traveling, three seconds, and other types of non-personal fouls which have seemed to not be going Maryland's way recently in conference play. I can't seem to find this data anywhere, but I would be very interested to see it.
MD Fouls |
OPP. Fouls |
Opponent/ Result |
Officials |
29 |
20 |
Pitt/ L |
Dwayne Gladen, Raymond Styons, Karl Hess |
23 |
13 |
N.C. State/ L |
Tim Nestor, Ed Corbett, Gary Maxwell |
19 |
22 |
Notre Dame/ W |
Bryan Kersey, Tony Greene, Ray Natili |
25 |
21 |
FSU/ L |
Joe Lindsay, Karl hess, Mike Eades |
17 |
11 |
Pitt/ L |
Ed Corbett, Tony Greene, Rodger Ayers |
15 |
17 |
GT/ W |
Jeff Clark, Joe Lindsay, Gary Maxwell |
22 |
24 |
BC/ W |
Bryan Kersey, Les Jones, Karl Hess |
24 |
23 |
GW/ L |
Gerry Pollard, Lee Cassell, Brent Hampton |
23 |
15 |
OSU/ L |
Mike Kitts, Terry Oglesby |
19 |
17 |
PROV/ W |
Roger Ayers, Joe Lindsay, Clarence Armstrong |
19 |
24 |
UNI/ W |
Jeff Clark, Brian Shey, Joe Lindsay |
21 |
22 |
ORST/ L |
Tim Ebersole, Karl Hess, Ray Natili |
17 |
22 |
UCONN/ L |
Dwayne Gladen, Tim Kelly, Gary Maxwell |
27 |
20 |
BU/ L |
Sean Hull, Andrew Amrrota, Ray Natili |
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