Will B1G teams be at a disadvantage in the tournament with non-B1G officials?

I honestly believe fouls/officiating even out for the most part during the course of a game. It seemed like we got every call to start the 2nd half but yet State was in the double bonus before us.

we should just boycott the whole damn tourney...

I think this all evens out.  If there was any truth to your hunch, it'd benefit offensive-minded teams with free-flowing offenses (IU, UM) as much as it would hurt other B1G teams, I would think.

I tend to think that what teams/players get away with is like 40% reputation, 15% crowd influence, 10% game situation influence, and 35% actual rules of basketball.

MSU and OSU have a reputation as defensive squads so I think will get away with some of the same stuff.

State has played physical forever and they usually do well in the tournament. I think most teams adjust.

Michigan won't. 

"There are no B1G refs in basketball, just NCAA refs that work in different areas" post.

But I think it might still be an issue in terms of style of play.

But there aren't really B1G officials. They do games all over the country.

So no, I think it's overblown. And it's easier to adjust to not playing physical than a game where they're letting people play.

Sparty thugs it up every year and Craft and Sulligener got away with a lot as well. Wisconsin has gone on a couple streaks in the tourny too.

The refs won't be the problem. Turnovers, lack of D, rebounding and or cold shooting will kill any team regardless of the officials.

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that NCAA basketball refs are not exclusive to any conference.  Thus, there would not be a difference between "B1G refs" and refs that call games in the tournament. 

If anything will impact the B1G it could be the less physical style of play in other conferences.  When both teams do it, some of it has to get through or else everybody will foul out.  When only one team does it, you'd think the refs will see one team as committing more fouls.

you're absolutely right and that Michigan will benefit from this relative to the rest of the B1G.

imagine how well we can play when all the hand checking, holding, and other defensive bullshit are called?

I'm of the belief that Michigan will benefit from having fought through the big ten. I 'd imagine the shooters will feel much more free in the tournament

They get away with a ton of staff with regards to physicality. They always do well in B1G because the ref let them get away with it. Come NCAA tourney, they get high seed and get upset by lower seed teams like Cornell, Bucknell, etc. When they get whistled for things they get away, they don't play as physical and they don't do well. There is a reason why they struggled in non-conference games.

Home court advantage is a huge deal to teams strengths from what I have watched.  So when you play at msu or osu it's going to be a physically played game and refs let more things go.  Msu and osu were riding our offensive players and that is something that gets called in a tourney game......

Michigan, Indiana tend to be more offensive and the calles tend to favor that style for these teams when at home.  I think it's why pennst got a win, they played our boys tough in a2 physically to nock our boys off their shooting....in happy valley they got away with even more they wouldnt in a2 or in a tourney..

Biggest thing is play aggressive no matter what the refs are calling.  Be aggressive offensively since they are an offensive team, and keep the defense active bigtime....The most aggressive team under control gets the calls.........That is why duke seeming owns officials but they play under control but ultra aggresive...  

I swear this thread is giving me serious deja vu from about a week ago...

I mean were not exactly getting good officiating right now...I hear what you're saying, but at this point I would love some non big ten officials for a game. Or just anyone other than valentine. He's a terrible official

Big Ten teams have done well in the tourney over the past decade, even if we haven't managed to win it all.  There's been a Big Ten team in the Final Four practically every year, so officiating doesn't seem to be a handicap.  Anyhow, some of our "favorite" officials (Hightower, Valentine) work the tourney, often all the way to the Final Four.

MSU folk saying Burke wouldn't be capable of half his offensive prowess if it weren't for B10 refs. I guess they didnt watch any preseason games. Then again, they also think Albrecht is our only PG ft next year.

I could live with that.  They notice the cameras more than the players.

Wisconsin is the most affected, like every year under Bo Ryan.  Craft's reputation is national, so he'll still get calls and Izzo is Izzo.  If anything, I figure Indiana and us will be helped.

God knows how Illinois or Minnesota feel like playing on any given day, so with them it's impossible to say.

A lot of people are posting the "There are no B1G referees, only NCAA [Division 1] referees" comment. On its face this is true, but it partly misses the point. While it is true that the guys who do B1G games do other conference games as well, it's not like there is a random massive pool of nationwide refs from which the B1G game assigments are drawn and all of the individual differences cancel out. Most refs work primarily within just a few conferences and usually that is based on either the top conferences (B1G, ACC, Big East) or it is based on geography (B1G, MAC, Horizon). The B1G scheduling coordinator seeks out certain refs who they perceive to be good. Secondly, many refs actually have a primary conference that they declare. The way that works is that refs pick a primary conference who gets to schedule them as much as the league wants and in exchange they get more $ for being responsive to the league's scheduling needs and the convenience of already getting a chunk of games scheduled in one geograpic region.

There are 18 games/team *12 teams * 3 referees divided by 2 teams per game = 324 referee assignments per season (ignoring BTT). Last year there were 9 men who did 168 of those 324 assignments or 52% of all ref assignments. See: http://statsheet.com/mcb/conferences/big-ten/referees?season=2011-2012.  All sorts of great data on refs on that site by the way. When people talk about B1G refs they are talking about the style of those particular refs who are popping up at a lot of B1G games. TV Ted is just one guy but he was in about 22% of the conference's games last year. See that link above but Mike Kitts, TV Ted, Terry Wymer, Mike Sanzere and Ed Hightower did 1/3 of the refs assignments in the regular season. Just five guys. So yeah, there are not B1G exclusive officials but there are a fairly small group of officials who do B1G games a lot and make up a good % of the refereeing.  Now, whether those particular guys who do the B1G currently are more prone to allowing physical play is I guess is up for debate. Dunno what the data says. Certainly there are individual differences that are clearly visible over time

The conference office's direction and tradition of play in the league and other stuff may also play a role. For sure reputation matters. No way that the Iowa guy, McCaffrey, gets away with the physical play against us that Izzo does. But Izzo has been to 6 Final Fours and has a reputation for teams w/ physical play and reputation matters so he'll get more calls or more importantly more non-calls. Refs are human.

It was totally inconsistent and at times just plain bad. We got a lot of calls early in the second half but then it was as if they were trying to not see the MSU mayhem.  This type of inconsistency is the hardest to deal with as a player.

With about 11 minutes left in the game Michigan gets into the bonus.  There would be only one additional foul called on MSU over the next eleven minutes while there were six called on us until McGary was fouled intentionally with 8 seconds left.  After the game I spent ½ an hour and reviewed the period right after the 11 minute mark going in slow motion at times and trying to be as fair as possible.  The refs were just awful to us. 

10:46 Hardaway drives to the hoop between two defenders both of them grab him and rip the ball away.  No foul. We get the ball out of bounds

9:15 Burke drives the lane and is grabbed and pushed and has to dish the ball to Albrecht who misses an open three.

8:44 Both teams scramble for a missed shot rebound. An MSU player grabs Hardaway by the shoulder and pulls him backward as he positions for the rebound.  The ball hits both of them and goes out. MSU gets the ball.

8:08  Burke drives and is fouled once before he get to a massive pick set by GRIII. He gets pushed in the back as he makes the layup.  No call.

8:02  GRIII is backing up as Appling jumps into him and attempts a shot which McGary cleanly blocks.  I think this is a fair call until during the time out they show highlights from a first half play where MSU did the exact same thing to us and did not get called for a foul (i.e. first defender on the ball bodies up on the drive and the second defender cleanly blocks the shot as it goes up.)

7:08  Burke get fouled on the drive with no call and dishes to Lavert who lays it in awkwardly as Nix throws him to the floor.  No call.

6:45  Morgan pulls in a rebound with two player on his back. The as he turn to throw an outlet pass he is fouled again a couple of times by an MSU player trying to steal the ball.  No call on either.

6:39  Burke drives and is grabbed and pushed and has to dish the ball. No call.

5:35  Burke is fouled at least three times on a drive to the hoop and makes the bucket anyway.  He shouts something at the refs in displeasure which is something I do not remember him doing very often if ever.  I guess he was fed up also.

4:36  Burke is fouled at least three times as he tries to bring the ball up the court.  Only on the third shove that sends him to the floor does the whistle come.  He makes both ends of the one and one.  This is the first foul called on MSU in over 6 minutes and the last foul shot we get until McGary is fouled intentionally with only 8 seconds left.  I could go on with a description of additional missed calls but we won so now I will just have some cheese with this whine.

3:53  Payne gets a rebound and then walks at least 4 steps after getting a rebound off a missed FT. No call.  This was the worst miss of the entire game and almost unbelievable that it did not get called. Enough already!

TL;DR summary- The lack of consistency of calls in this game was shameful.  However, this is not happening just in our games but across the board in B1G games this season. (I have watched quite a few non-Michigan games on BTN this year).  I have been playing the game myself and watching B1G b-ball since Cazzie and I have never felt the refs were this piss poor.  I have also ref’ed b-ball myself so I know how hard it is to be fair and balanced but SHEEESH it’s bad this year.  

I think M's platform favors neutral court and close called games. Allows Burke and Hardaway more freedom to move.



MSU can potentially play that game too.

What about the fact that the B1G teams have already played a stretch of their schedule as hard as anything in the NCAA tournament?  @IU, OSU, @Wis, @MSU has got to be as hard or harder than any 4 game stretch in the NCAA tournament this year.  Granted Michigan lost 3 of those, but it's great practice for when it comes to tournament time.  The B1G should do fine, as every team in the conference has played a 4 game stretch as brutal as that one.  I don't think any other conference has the same difficulty of conference schedule.