A Tall Order

Piggybacking off a topic I brought up yesterday, the Bucks are playing at Iowa tonight. Why is this related to a topic from yesterday? Well, as was pointed out in the Dispatch, the Hawkeyes, like several Big Ten teams, enjoy a home court advantage (link from BC) that seems largely dependant on huge foul discrepancies in their favor. The article notes that in Iowa's home wins over Minnesota, Indiana, and Illinois, the Hawks have been called for an astounding average of 12.3 fewer fouls than their respective opponents per game, and have shot an average of 14.7 more free throws than the Gophers, Hoosiers, and Illini in those three games.

I don't know why, but the Big Ten seems to be littered with arenas where the officials go out of their way to give just about every break possible to the home team, and it's been this way for what seems like forever. One need only harken back to the days when Bobby Knight roamed the sidelines in Bloomington, where in any given game you could count on the Hoosiers making twice as many free throws as their opponents attempted. Since Knight was booted, the biggest homerdome in the conference appeared to become the Kohl Center, where Wisconsin 69-4 in Bo Ryan's five-plus seasons in Madison, with several notable wins apparently aided by *ahem* dubious officiating.

So the Bucks will have their work cut out for them. Will the Hawkeyes maintain their average of having 12 fewer fouls called than their opponents in home games? Will the Buckeyes be able to overcome such a discrepancy if it occurs? We shall see...


Edited to add: I didn't watch the game, but from looking at the box score, I see that the free throw discrepancy wasn't egregious (16 for us, 18 for them), but get this stat of the game: Fouls called on OSU in the 2nd half: 12. Fouls called on Iowa in the game: 11. Oh yeah, and Iowa's last FG came with 6:02 remaining. Their last seven points of the game all came from the charity stripe. Just another Big Ten road game...