I did some stats this week re free throws for Perth's oppo home and away, which came out as around 13 at Perth Arena but 25 in other venues. That's a fair difference, must be the 12,000 redshirts!

I remember one of those charges called against Knight was complete crap too.

Anyway, this one only affects 70 people at most; this Green-Eyed Derangement Syndrome seems to be turning into a pandemic!

Conspiriacus Theoritis!

Why would I want to give it a break? Would you expect Amnesty not to speak out against injustices around the globe? There could be a new disease to be discovered and maybe a Nobel prize for medicine on offer.

Interesting. I always find it hard to understand how posters (from all teams) happily accept that their team playing in front the home crowd lifts them and puts pressure on the away team but claim it doesn't affect the refs! Especially as most posters think the refs are sub par anyway. Somehow the refs are super humanly capable of blocking out the visual and verbal impact of the home crowd at their team's venue while remaining rubbish at every other venue.

It makes more sense to debate the size of the home crowd effect on refs for different teams than to ignore it altogether. In that spirit, repeating Jack's analysis and similar analyses for other teams would be a more helpful exercise than putting up the defences and throwing stones.

For all games played until the end of R9:

OF Rate of home team 7.1%, OF rate of away team 7.7%

At Perth Arena: 6.7% vs 12.1%

Is it standard for the 'most knowledgble' fans to go around digging up mud when their team is not doing well?

As I remember there were a fair few home cooked calls at the home last night for the Sixers...but lets not consider those.

I'd be more interested in seeing those stats evaluated relative to how the teams were playing, rather than simply a blanket.

There's no doubt that the Cats enjoy a huge home-court advantage, and generally visiting teams struggle at the Arena. Maybe struggling teams commit more offensive fouls?

Is it standard for the 'most knowledgble' fans to go around digging up mud when their team is not doing well?

As I remember there were a fair few home cooked calls at the home last night for the Sixers...but lets not consider those.

Refs are human, they make mistakes.
There also seems to be variance over time in what they choose to "focus" on. They'll start a season red hot to send a message on certain fouls, then gradually ease up.
There will also be individual refs that call certain fouls differently.

However anybody that seriously thinks that refs display "home-court bias" is a crackpot.

You don't think there is bias towards the home team? So why do Perth concede twice as many free throws away from home as they do at Perth Arena?

More like Taurus Excretus.

Perhaps the Perth players lift their defensive rating in front of a crowd?

Adelaide should try drawing a crowd sometime so we can compare the stats?

Butthurtus Jacskaurius

However anybody that seriously thinks that refs display "home-court bias" is a crackpot.

Wow just list a ton of respect for Jack Toft after this absolute garbage of a thread.
- 1 Respect , + 1 Tosser

"You don't think there is bias towards the home team? So why do Perth concede twice as many free throws away from home as they do at Perth Arena?"

Maybe because they play better at home?

I like ragging on the Refs as much as the next guy, but think about what you're suggesting.
There's a blocking foul committed by the Cats, but instead the refs decide to call it a charge? WHY?
Because they're all closet Wildcats fans???
Or they're afraid somebody might boo them??
Seriously?

Who got the flop warning today Jack?

Owned.

Given how badly flops have been called this season the person who got the warning probably got fouled and the person who flopped probably got the charge!

You would have to say the crowd would factor into the chargelock call.
Perth have a crowd, 2 to 3 times the size of most teams, some 5-6 times.

With a lot of players (across all teams) happy to flop on these plays you are going to get more calls at home with the crowd making noise.

You can argue that the ref should just call it as it is, but a lot of these calls are 50-50 and some refs seem to like making the charge sign and getting a big reaction from the crowd.

I saw a charge called in the MiamiUtah game when Chalmers moved sideways and leaned his shoulder sideways into the Utah player and then flopped 4 feet backwards and got the call.

So it happens everywhere, I guess the difference is that the NBA ref will actually get feedback on the call and sent to the NBDL if they don't get better.
Don't know what happens in the NBL in terms of ref feedback, they won't get better if they aren't shown the errors or if there is no accountability.

To say that Perth is the only team that gets " home court calls" is just a lot or garbage. I usually enjoy your creative writing Jack but seriously we here enough of this rubbish from Boti.

Just maybe, the teams that play Perth in Perth arrive with a defeatist attitude and therefore play like crap. Therefore they commit more fouls. maybe if the arrived thinking they might win, it might be a different story.
It is interesting to see how many people hate the Wildcats simply because they are successful.

Spot on Jack.

Seriously?
Maybe some other teams should put in the hard yards with the public and build a fanbase, like the Cats have done over the past decades? Instead of just b____ing because they have bigger crowds.

It was interesting in the game against Adelaide. For the first 2.5~3 quarters, whilst the game was close, Adelaide had an advantage in the foul count. Then they ran out of puff (or gave up,) they fell away, they got sloppy, and managed to level up the foul count.

So once again we have seen a struggling team, playing catch-up all night, get frantic and sloppy and commit more fouls. 24 - 18.
But are we blaming those "biased" Sydney refs?
No, the Cats are appalling on the road this year and have simply played poorly.