Why do home teams get the calls?

[BYULV]

I don't want to rehash how bad the refs are/were in any particular game (although they were a bit inconsistent last night), but wonder if the perception that the home team gets all (majority of) the calls is true or just a perception? And if true why is there a disparity in calls home vs away?

[BYUROCKS]

The Crowd, they start to get rowdy, and the refs become more willing, to call it.

[SpiffCoug]

BYU was called for four charges. I only agreed with one of them. The other three I attributed to "home cookin.'"

[BYUROCKS]

BYU was called for four charges. I only agreed with one of them. The other three I attributed to "home cookin.'"

And they they had that play were Jimmer ended up in the 4th row, because of a no Call charge.

[BYULV]

I agree that Davies needs to work on his defense, but the calls he got on him were mostly ridiculous. Miles was thrown off his game because he had someone hanging on his arm a lot of the night. Once an aggressive team gets away with playing physical they just keep doing it. UNLV is one of the worst (or best) at pushing the physical defense until the refs reign them back. If the refs don't blow the whistle the aggressive team gets that much more of an advantage. This is going to be a recurrent problem next Saturday (vs UNLV). I expect the refs will let UNLV get away with most of their bumping and holding enough that it throws off BYU's rythm and flow (it has been this way each time we play in LV). BYU was definitely out of sync last night and a lot of that was due to UNM's defense, but a part of it was the ref's inconsistency. If the game last night was called equally tight like fouls on NM or equally loose like no call on BYU I think BYU would have been able to adjust to the game flow better and that would have made the difference. Hopefully Coach Rose prepares the team to deal with more of this type of treatment next week so we can beat nasty rebs in LV this time (they really are pretty nasty - at least the fans are).

[Schmoe]

Don't remember who did the study, but they found that the home team does get more calls, it's not just in the fans' minds. So, whoever voted that one may want to rethink their answer, that is all.

[BYULV]

This article sites a study that claims refs have a bias in favor of participants wearing red:

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/09/referee_bias.php

Makes sense when you look at all the times we get homered against UNLV, UNM, SDSU and Utah (even when we are the home team).

[BYULV]

That article also claims the refs made fewer calls against the home crowd when there was crowd noise.

[BYULV]

Heres an article for SI (also in ESPN) from 11/2009 confirming Referee bias in college BBall including home teams getting more calls, refs trying to even out call counts and refs keeping games closer by calling fouls when it is a "Big Game" or on a bigger stage (ie regional or national TV vs local).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/b ... index.html

(not sure why they don't cite the study by name or name the authors and I am having trouble finding the actual study online . . . wonder if something fishy is going on here. Maybe someone doesn't want this information to be out there . . . if you don't see any more posts from me, please let my wife know I loved her . . .)

[bball]

Because refs have no character and are gutless. A foul should be a foul anywhere on the planet, not just in some places. And, I honestly think many officials believe the home team deserves the edge, the benefit of the doubt. a little extra help. And they're big egos are so big they can't stand doing the unpopular (with the home crowd) so calls go against the visiting team who rarely have many fans in the gym. It's one of the things I hate about basketball.