Home cooking in the B10 - data analysis

I think home cooking is just part of playing on the road in the B10. Everyone plays the same number of home and away games, so it evens out in the end. Sure, it's frustrating when we're on the road - just like it's frustrating for the opponent in Bloomington.

However, after seeing the foul differential in the Indiana @ Iowa game and the MSU @ Michigan game, I decided some research was in order.

There have been 34 B10 games so far this season. I looked at each one and noted the number of fouls on the home team and the away team. Here's the results (raw data is at the bottom).

Total games = 34
Average fouls/game = 33.4
Average away fouls/game = 18.3
Average home fouls/game = 15.2
Average foul differential = 3.1

* Home team has more fouls in 10 of 34 games.
# Away team has 8 or more fouls in 8 games.
Home team has 8 or more fouls in 0 games.

Obviously those are some pretty significant numbers. I think the last two are particularly interesting. An 8 foul differential is obviously pretty darn big -- it NEVER happens to the home team, and it has happened to the road team a whopping 24% of the time.

So then I wracked my brain trying to think of an explanation for this difference that didn't involve biased officiating. I came up with one alternative explanation. Obviously, some foul differential is the result of the trailing team fouling late in the game, and since B10 home teams win at a remarkable clip this might account for the difference. Of course, there's a cause-and-effect problem there, because it could be that home teams win at a remarkable clip BECAUSE of the foul differential, so without having data about the fouls committed in the last 3 or 4 minutes of the game, I don't know how to test my hypothesis.

Anyway, here's the raw data:

A H
nw @ pu 18 16
ps @ uw 20 12 #
ms @ um 26 14 #
mn @ il 15 13
iu @ ia 25 9 #
ia @ ms 17 15
os @ ps 17 18 *
pu @ iu 24 21
il @ nw 12 16 *
um @ mn 18 16
pu @ ps 13 16 *
mn @ ia 25 16 #
nw @ um 7 14 *
uw @ os 21 14
il @ iu 22 17
ms @ os 12 16 *
ia @ ps 17 19 *
nw @ uw 21 14
um @ il 20 20
mn @ pu 18 16
iu @ ms 20 12 #
os @ pu 16 10
ps @ nw 11 17 *
uw @ mn 18 23 *
ms @ uw 24 16 #
pu @ um 23 16
il @ ia 25 12 #
nw @ mn 8 14 *
os @ iu 25 16 #
ia @ uw 18 14
ps @ os 12 14 *
ms @ il 17 12
pu @ nw 18 16
um @ iu 18 12