Can someone explain why home court in college basketball is so important? I don’t get why teams are so good at home and struggle so bad on the road. I played basketball in high school but didn’t feel like we couldn’t win on away games. It is almost a given in college basketball these days that you can’t win on the road. The crowds are not that big so what is the deal???
That’s a great question. I really don’t understand the game all that much.
As in why do we lose every road game… it is not all Larry.
Is it? Dang I am starting to wonder. On paper he fills all the spots but I hate the transfers and wonder…
It’s one thing to lose every road game, we are a young team after all, and I think that is usually one of the signs inexperience. It’s another to look like we have no clue what we are doing, and are completely incapable of competing…
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When I played in HS it wasn’t always easy to win on the road for whatever reason. Sometimes it was home cooking by the refs and sometimes it was just lack of familiarity with the gym, hoops, etc. It could be just me but sometimes it seemed like the rims were just slightly off in one way or the other. Some schools were just harder to win at. And the crowd is always a factor as well. Harder to get in the groove in a hostile environment. Not sure what is going on with Utah other than being a very young and inexperienced team.
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Unfortunately the reality is, referees give the home team the benefit of the doubt. I listened to last nights game on the radio (the too good to be true free Pac-12 YouTube.com video broadcast came to an end the last 2-3 days), upon hearing Jimmie Soto complain about a what he viewed as a horrible call it got me thinking, yep, typical home cooking. Against Washington at the Huntsman Center there were a few calls that were in the Utes favor where I was thinking, hmmm, I don’t know about that call, glad we’re at home. Same with another recent home game, can’t remember if it was Cal or Stanford. On the other hand, referee home team bias might account for let’s say 7-8 points maximum, not 19 points.
Somewhat related, the charging call is out of control. Now you have people almost throwing themselves in front of the offensive player a second (or less) prior and then falling back (flopping), and the refs take the bait. Several decades ago you had to have established defensive position much earlier.
Another thing that has changed big time is how players are allowed to arrest the ball during a dribble, cradle it ever so slightly, it would have been called palming in a previous era.
Lastly, why the heck don’t refs call intentional fouls at the end of games. The rule was put in to stop the end of game travesty. They don’t have to guts to call anything intentional short of a beheading. When one team has say a 10 point lead with two or three minutes left the conclusion passes at the pace of a root canal.
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We have arrived. One thing that seems very pronounced to me this season as compared to previous years is that we are actually getting the home cooking now. It makes it a lot easier to dismiss the home cooking on the road, but it is a real thing and I wish the PAC would work on reducing it.
RE charging, I do like the rule change which is basically that the primary defender no long needs to be ‘set’ just maintaining a legal guarding position. I share some mixed feelings about it but generally it is imparting a penalty to players that just lower their shoulder and drive through the defender. Bottom line is that it is actually physically impossible to defend someone who is moving if you can’t move with them, so the rule change was more to match up with how refs were actually calling it. I’m open to other opinions, but I’m just not sure how you write and enforce the rule any better. My biggest compliant is consistency. Something I know this team needs to realize is that the refs, especially on the road, are not going to give you that call, so you need to stay on your feet, move your feet, and play physical defense. Anymore, it seems like we are giving away a lot of fall down, play on, shorthanded buckets.
On the intentional fouls, the only time I’ve seen that called is when the foul is overly physical and not a play on the ball. When you are on the losing end of a lot of games like we are, it’s annoying to watch us prolong our agony, but IMO that part of the game is fixed about as much as you can fix it.