Home Officiating Bias

The home crowd seems to dictate a lot of calls. Especially at the end of the game.

I don't really know how to combat this, but I am personally sick and tired of watching this happen, specifically when Duke plays at home.

It seems like that rule generally holds true, except the #1 team in the country is usually protected by the refs. I wonder what would have happened if we played ohio after the new rankings came out, reflecting Duke's loss. Maybe we get another call or two? I think other conferences take care of their #1 teams moreso than the B1G does. But that's just my opinion.

I would tell my players to not take a charge.  They won't get it.  Rather, attempt to reach in on dribble drives at the very least it's not a shooting foul.   and If I were the home team, I would drive on every opportunity.  

Not just limited to college BB - you see plenty of this in the NBA as well. Much more so than hockey, football or baseball. I think it's a function of the way the crowd interacts with the players and the refs. They're so much closer to the action than in the other 3 sports and as a result, it's a lot easier for both the players and the refs to feed off the emotion and will of the crowd. The refs too often get caught up in it and instinctively side with the home team. Some refs are worse than others, but this has been a problem for the game for as long as I can remember watching basketball at any level. I don't think it will change anytime soon.

The book Scorcasting talks a lot about this.  They argue (and I agree), that the "home field advantage" across all sports can be mostly linked to officiating.  College basketball, statisticaly has the largest home field (court) advantage in sports.  The books says its likely due to the objectivity of calls.  Most sports, major calls are more bright lined.  Basketball, its really more ambiguous as to when there is a call.

 What can be done about it??  Ummm. I've personally just accepted that its almost part of the game.  Makes home court mean something.  50/50 calls will go home teams way, so you just gotta play that much sharper on the road.

I dont mind it except when it gets ridiculous like at indiana and ohio

In the end, it's a wash.  I don't think any team (at least in our conference) benefits more so than others, so every time we lose a close game because of it, I feel confident that we'll get the makeup when the game comes back to Ann Arbor.  But I think it weakens the validity of the event itself.  It feels like it has a "part show" quality to it.  

Like other have said, I think officials in college basketball get caught in the emotion of the game moreso than other sport (and for good reason).  Nothing can be done about it, it's human nature. 

It's kind of nice when it happens at home but then sometimes I feel like we're stealing points. It's horrible on the road. Refs are people too and I'm sure they subletly enjoy hearing the home crowd cheer instead of boo and enjoy seeing the poor team way behind get back in it. Hard to take that human element out of it

but also by people who actually study this stuff (Boyko 2007, Pierce 2009, AP 2009). Perhaps especially noteworthy was the Kelley School of Business 2009 study, which concluded that home teams should generally play more physcal, aggressive basketball to take full advatage of the bias.

Do you have links to these studies or any more information on how they were conducted?

Because if the main statistic that is considered is number of fouls for home teams vs. away teams, then it is pretty flawed.

We also have to consider that the home team generally plays better and because of that will foul less/draw fouls. To an untrained eye, it appears that the refs are giving the home team the benefit of the doubt, but that's not necessarily the case.

As a case in point: the 50/50 calls from the OSU game everyone was complaining about? I think there was only one that you could call "50/50." The rest were correct and if you watch the replay and know the rule, they weren't that close.

Just let them play. Except ohio...they should lose every game.

I touched on this in a thread over the weekend.   I'm in my twenties and have watched lots of basketball over the years.  Growing up it was watching the Bulls, their first Championship year was when I really started watching and then on through the 90's.  In the mid-late 90's is when I started watching college basketball (Michigan, duh).  I was also playing ball by the late 90's, competetively.  Even though I knew the game fairly very well as a youth (we even watched film during the middle school years/traveling AAU years) I can guarantee I watch basketball differently now as an adult than back then.

What I'm doing a poor job of getting at, and this primarily but not soley goes to the older-than-me people here, is has the officiating seemed to change over the past, say, 20 years?  Is home crowd a bigger benefactor than it was in say, 1985, 1990, 1995, 1998, 2003?  What I posted the over the weekend was that to me, since I've been watching basketball as a teenager and an adult, which means back to the early 2000's, it seems over that over that span, ~10 years, that the officiating has changed.  For example, home court/crowd nowadays really is a benefit (especially in a close game) where, in my opinion, 10 years ago it wasn't as big a factor, for whatever reason. 

(The "Charging" rule/call has defnitely changed in my mind, that isn't even an opinion but a fact to me.  One used to have to have had the "spot" for, say at least a second, and now if one gets there two-tenths of a second before the ball carrier gets there a charge can be called; it's made the game more finesse and disallows many tactics of getting to the basket (for better or worse).  Other calls have evolved as well, as athletes are more superior nowadays, such as the rarity of "Over the Back" calls, NCAA basketball allowing more steps instead of a travel, etc..)