BC's Bad Boys

Building on the excellent work of D1scoure’s Patrick Stevens, who looked into fouls per player in the ACC, I wanted to get a sense of how the Eagles stacked up in terms of committing personal fouls this season.

Below is a list of Eagles who have averaged at least 15 minutes per game this year and a measure of their fouls on a per-40 minute basis. This boots Dunn (5.80 fouls/40 min), Ravenel (9.32), Rehnquist (3.64) and Mosakowski (8.00) from the below list.

Of course, this measure isn’t perfect, but is a better way of leveling the playing field in terms of personal fouls.

Obviously the first thing that jumps out at you is that Josh Southern is averaging over 6 fouls per game if he played all 40 minutes. Basically, he is averaging fouling out of every game. Heck, he wouldn't even last the full 48 minutes and 6 fouls allotted in an NBA game. This combined with Dunn's high average (5.80) and clearly our big men are struggling to guard taller, more athletic centers and forwards.

Elmore is committing his fair share of fouls as well. He plays with a good deal of intensity and is sometimes prone to picking up fouls in bunches, like in the Wake Forest game, where he picked up 2 quick fouls on mismatches against Wake's big men.

The other thing that stands out to me is Biko Paris' number. 1.96 fouls per 40 minutes. What's going on here? Maybe it's his decreased minutes over the last few games, or him considering defense optional, or the refs swallowing the whistle when Biko is on defense, or just sound defense (a stretch? probably). Whatever the case may be, Biko isn't committing a lot of fouls. In only one game this season, he got to 4 fouls (in 15 minutes at Wake Forest) and reached the 3 foul mark in only 3 other games. If you have any theories, let me know.