It is not the officials’ fault.

First, the overall foul margin was close in our last two tourney losses. This year, when we were a poor team at getting to the free throw line (296th in D-1 Schools in FT attempts per FG attempt), we still managed to shoot more free throws (30) than Villanova (27), who, as a team, gets to the free throw line a lot (27th in D-1 Schools in FT attempts per FG attempt). Gordon committed 3 fouls in the last 4 minutes because he was trying to be an enforcer and he has not yet learned how not to foul. Dragovic drew 4 fouls because he was out of position on two offensive rebounds and slow to help on two drives.

Last year, we committed 3 more fouls than Memphis, but in the last 3 minutes, we fouled them 5 times, all intentionally (including DC’s ridiculous hack 40 feet from the hoop that fouled him out) to send them to the line to shoot free throws, where we hoped they would miss. They didn’t, shooting 10 for 10. They fouled us once in that period, meaning that going into the garbage time when we were intentionally fouling them, they fouled us once more than we fouled them, even though they were the aggressors on offense the entire game. Simply put, DC got into foul trouble because he could not guard Derrick Rose, and it wasn’t even close.

So the only real outlier in terms of # of fouls are the Florida games. Let’s face it, Florida (and to a lesser extent Memphis and Villanova) had superior size and quickness at multiple positions. Noah, Horford and Brewer were nightmarish matchups for us. When you’re slower and smaller and not as good, you’re going to foul more than if you’re quicker and bigger and better. Even then, we fouled Florida 6 times in the last 2 minutes (all intentionally, including the last one, with 20 seconds left by AA in his last moment on the floor as a Bruin) to their 1 (which was not intentional but rather to stop a put back on an offensive rebound). The pre-intentional fouling phase brought about only a 4-foul disparity. A gap, yes, but not a huge one when you consider the size and athleticism gap of their bigs and ours and that they got to the line more than we did all year (we were 245th and they were 34th in FTA/FGA ratio).

In 2006, we committed only 3 fouls in garbage time, so there was a 6 foul disparity, but only a 2 FT difference if you take away the 4 FTs Florida shot in the last minute on these last 3 fouls. I note that even in the last minute of that game, Florida was not in the double bonus and missed two front ends of 1 and 1s before the last foul put them into the double bonus. We just couldn’t draw fouls in that game because their bigs swatted everything away and then we stopped taking it to the rim with authority.

So, I guess you could say that I disagree with your premise that foul calls and foul trouble have been an issue for us in these games, at least not one that can be generalized. A lot of the foul trouble didn’t materialize until late in the game, when we were playing from a deficit. Some was due to poor matchups. Some was due to over-aggressiveness. Some was due to poor positioning. Overall, however, there is no foul disparity to point to, just that a few of our players have ended up with 4 or 5 fouls, which often happens when you have 3 fouls and have to keep taking chances because you are behind.

To respond to your individual questions:

(1) The refs do not single out Pac-10 teams because they think we’re soft. Do you know how many opponents have complained that we never get called for fouls? Every team that we beat with Kevin Love at center, at the very least. The statistics do not bear this out. Last weekend, every Pac-10 game except two had a foul disparity of 3 or less. The outliers were Arizona having 6 fewer than Utah and Cal having 5 more than Maryland. Of course, both of those games had fouls by the losing team at the end of the game that increased the disparity. Still, 10 of 12 games were relatively even in fouls.

(2) Our players do an excellent job of playing defense with their feet and not their hands. In previous years, Love, Mata and Luc all did this well, allowing us to play physically and alter shots without going for high-risk, high-foul rate block attempts. This is one of the reasons that Ben Howland gets so much praise for how he teaches defese. You can see it in our games. We rarely reach, we play defense with our feet, and we beat the man to the spot. I would say that this year’s team was worse at this, mainly because the lateral foot speed and stength of ND and JH was not as good as the players they replaced and also because we didn’t have guys who could double the post effectively.

(3) I think you have a false assumption. As argued above, only in the Florida games did we commit more fouls than our opponents before garbage time. I don’t think that our fouls come from reaching; they come from trying to make physical plays, like strong hedges, moving picks, charges (and failed attempts to draw them), challenging their shots and your usual rebounding positional/pushing issues. Occasionally, we reach in, but that is not a customary problem with our team since Howland took over. We in fact, play for steals much less than most teams do, preferring to play positional defense. Teams that spread us out do make us vulnerable to blocking fouls because we they will try to drive on us, and we will try to beat them to the spot, often resulting in a call.

(4) Surely Luc, Love and RW departing had an impact on our defense. By the end of the season last year, they were our 3 best defenders. Luc and Love were in the top 400 in fewest fouls called per 40 minutes played, which is rare for a 4 and a 5.

The refs do make bad calls. It’s a part of the game. But I have watched almost all of our games this year, and I can honestly say that the only bad call that had a negative impact on the outcome of one of our games was the “charge” on Collison at ASU. Even then, who’s to say whether we win the game or lose it if that foul is called correctly. It would still have been a 1-point game with under a minute to play, and the other team was at home and had the best player in the conference. Total crap shoot.

This next part is not in response to this post but to all the posters who incessantly complain about the officiating. I understand that it’s hard to resist the temptation. I am sick and tired of hearing anyone say that the officials had anything to do with one of these 4 tournament losses. We were vastly outplayed in each of the 4 games. We were not the better team, and in each case, it was not a close call. Could we have benefited from having Afflalo play more against Florida? Of course. But they won because they were better. I would even say that Florida didn’t play a great game against us, but it was plenty good to win by 10.

Basketball is always going to have officials, and they will always make mistakes. It’s part of the game, but 99 times out of 100, heck you could say 99.5 times out of 100, the officials don’t make a difference in the outcome. Yet, with every loss, every fan complains that the officials were uneven, they screwed us, they cost us the game. We lose games because the other team is the aggressor, has the superior players, plays better than we do.

We do not lose because the officials don’t give us enough calls. Enough with the complaints. It’s time for fans to grow up and accept that sometimes your team is just not the better team.

I agree with tasser10 that it’s not the number of fouls, but the the type of fouls. That’s about where my agreement ends.

I’m a Bruin homer like the rest of us, but I’m not a fan of these excuses. In my opinion, UCLA’s losses have been due to other teams aggression. Under Howland, UCLA has been a consistently tough, physical team, but when UCLA loses the other team looks more aggressive and physical than the Bruins do. The more aggressive team usually gets the calls. Does anybody recall Memphis’ whining after UCLA beat them to go to the first final four? Memphis complained…a lot…Then they took a page out of our book and came back stronger.

In the losses listed above, UCLA may very well have more personal fouls than the other team. But, if you look at the tapes, I’m sure that the other team has driven to the lane and scored more in the paint than we did. Aggression. Simply put, jump shots do not usually get the other team in foul trouble. If you attack the basket, good things happen.

I hated playing Nova in Philly at 10:00 am as much as the next guy, but making excuses regarding venue is pointless. I believe that if UCLA played the way they are capable, they could have beaten Nova. The fact of the matter is, Nova made us play their game, played much more physical, and imposed their will. We couldn’t keep up. Florida and Memphis did the same thing in years prior.

I look forward to seeing the next generation of Bruins go forward. I think JH will be able to get to the hole in ways that DC couldn’t. ML may very well be a perfect SG for Howland’s system, the way AA was. We have a number of athletic wing/PF type hybrid players that probably could have kept up with Nova. Last, we have Drew Gordon. He has the mental makeup to get this team over the hump. I don’t see any fear in him, and I doubt there will be a game where he doesn’t match or exceed his opponent’s aggression.

Florida’s massive advantage against us both times was their size. They had two NBA-quality big men (Noah and Horford) who, naturally, were going to do the dirty work inside, muscle in to the basket, and get fouled. Our strategy against them both times was to shoot from outside, so which one of those strategies do you think would draw more fouls? The foul discrepancies in the Memphis and Nova games were negligible; a three- or one-foul difference is nothing to get worked up over. We lost to Florida both times because we didn’t have any answer for the Noah/Horford combo, because Brewer locked Afflalo down and because we shot a combined 8-for-38 from beyond the arc; we lost to Memphis because we had an uncharacteristically terrible shooting day and because Collison couldn’t handle Derrick Rose; and we lost to Nova because they were a faster, deeper, more balanced team. Don’t blame the referees, don’t blame the locations…the team lost those games. The Memphis game was definitely winnable, but we would have had to play an absolutely perfect game to beat Florida or Nova, and we didn’t. It’s that simple. There’s almost no situation in which it’s acceptable to legitimately blame referees/officials for a loss.

And I think you hit on the exact problem. Here’s what I think:

Before the 08 class, Howland’s main target in recruiting wasn’t the typical long, athletic, potential-oozing playmaker, like a Derrick Rose or an OJ Mayo. It was someone who wasn’t necessarily a great offensive threat, but instead a team-oriented guy that could do the dirty work and play aggressively on the defensive end. That’s all well and good, but when you come against a team that’s far superior athletically and can plain beat you with their speed, it’s near-impossible to stop them, and I think that’s what leads to all the fouls; if you can’t contain ‘em, foul ’em. That’s why DC fouled out against Memphis and AA fouled out against Florida and LMR/LRMAM/AA2 all fouled out/nearly fouled out against Florida. It’s hard to say this, but I think the only solution is to conform to the typical “successful NCAA team” model and start going after guys who are long and athletic and quick.

And I think Howland knows that, because his 2008 class was very different from his previous ones; the best thing that Holiday/Lee/Anderson/Gordon have going for them is their natural athletic ability, not necessarily their “scrappiness” or their “tenacity” or their “will to win.” But here’s the thing: after having to learn from Ben, they’ll know that they have to play suffocating defense and not turn every game into a fast-break-layup contest. Look at someone like Russell Westbrook: he was an athletic freak of nature who could dunk in traffic and beat fools off the dribble. At a Big 12 school, they probably let him loose to score 25 points a game and tell him “not to worry too much” about his defense. In Ben’s system? He’s still a big threat on the offensive end, but he’s able to use his athleticism to become a lockdown defender.

And that’s why you should be optimistic: guys like Jrue, Lee, Gordon, Moser, and Honeycutt are all dripping with athleticism, and through Ben’s tutelage they have the potential to become RW-like lockdown defenders IN ADDITION TO their significant talent on the offensive end. Personally, I think if we give them chances to shine in our system that this problem will go away without any big changes really needing to happen. That’s why I’m so in favor of going with a young roster next season; they all have a ton of talent, and if anyone can teach them to harness it into becoming big-time contributors on both ends of the floor, it’s Ben. Just look at RW.

Sure, fine, whatever. Forget that referees bailed us out three different times at the end of the basketball season last year (when DC got very questionably fouled in the Stanford game and was allowed to shoot the tying free throws, when Ryan Anderson got mugged-but-apparently-not-fouled at the end of the Cal game that led to Shipp’s illegal game-winning shot that was allowed to stand, and when the Texas A&M guy got hacked in the arm going for the tying layup without a foul being called) and forget that Nova ended up getting called for MORE fouls than us in this year’s second-round matchup. Let’s just all agree that every time UCLA loses in basketball or football, the team played perfectly and the coach coached perfectly and the only reason we lost was because the NCAA hates us. That’ll make everyone happy, right?

It’s stupid and childish to blame referees for a loss. It takes all the blame and responsibility off your players and your coaches and puts it onto forces outside your control, which is just plain “making excuses.” In all of those games we lost in the Final Four, we did not play as well as our opponents and did not deserve to win. In the 2004 Victory Bell game against USC, we did not play as well as the Trojans and did not deserve to win (anyone else remember us getting nothing out of a second-quarter drive that began in the USC red zone, as well as Justin London’s fumbled interception and Karl Dorrell’s awful clock/timeout management in the waning minutes?). And if you’re saying that the reason you lost is because the entire freaking institution is out to get you…well, I don’t even know how to describe that.

we get more fouls called on us because we play much more aggressive defense than other teams?

That’s all I’m trying to say. Freaking 12-year-olds whine about refereeing after losses. Be an adult and accept the loss gracefully for God’s sake. If it ever comes down to a situation like the 1972 Olympic Gold Medal Game, where one team had played well enough to win and had the game won, then had it taken away from them by the referees, THEN you could say that you got screwed. But when you get outrebounded 39-26 and turn the ball over 20 times to your opponents’ 11, then you didn’t deserve to win. I really shouldn’t have to be saying this, but jeez, based on the reaction after the game you would have thought our entire starting five had fouled out in the first 2 minutes.

I’m not trying to sound all high-and-mighty and condescending—really, I’m not—and I’m definitely not trying to quash the discussion. My attack posts have mostly been directed at the guy who suggested that the NCAA intentionally screwed the Bruins with their seeding and officiating, because that’s a ridiculous idea that doubles as a lame excuse for why we lost to Nova. I don’t mean to characterize BN posters as a whole as guys who just whine about refs and make excuses, because that’s definitely not the case. Nearly every post I’ve read here has been well-intentioned and well-thought-out, and that’s why I came here. It was just one particular post that was so unreasonable that I kind of flipped out.

On discussion…yeah, I think it’s fair to say that Ben’s defensive style is prone to more fouls getting called. When you play aggressive man-to-man defense, you’re bound to get a lot of touch fouls called. That’s how it’s always been and always will be. Ben’s not changing his defensive strategy anytime soon (and for good reason; when it works, it’s fantastic, as seen in the 06-08 tournaments), so we’re just going to have to hope that our new batch of players is fast enough and agile enough to keep up with fast-paced squads like Memphis and Villanova without needing to foul them to prevent them from getting easy baskets. And since Holiday, Malcolm, Jerime, Honeycutt, Moser, and Gordon are all freakishly athletic, I think that we can count on that. If we play a fast team in the tournament next year, I think we’ll be more than ready for them.

Their performance on Thursday against Dook suggest that they’re the real deal. I didn’t watch our game with them (another committment which as it turns out I’m glad I had), so I have nothing to add about refs. But the way Villanova looks, we could probably have had six or seven guys on the Court and we wouldn’t have been able to stop them. The refs may have been lousy (they usually are), but they probably didn’t change the eventual outcome.