Jimmer Not Getting the Calls

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I don't know if I am in total agreement with this article. The writer is taking the position that because of officiating this season, Jimmer is getting less calls as he drives to the basket. I don't believe you can use the correlation of the number of foul shots from this season to the previous because coming into this season the talk was that to develop Jimmer's game, he needed to dish off more of the shots as he would be double and tripple-teamed leaving 1-2 persons open for a shot. Wouldn't there be a higher correlation to Jimmer not developing that part of his game if his number of foul shots were the same this season unless he was getting many more minutes?

This year Jimmer is averaging 5.2 FTA per game. Last year it was 7.4. Through 13 games last year he averaged 6.5. He averaged 6.3 in conference games last year. He had nine games of 10 or more FTA last year. This year he has zero such games.



In the four post season games last year (MWC and NCAA Tourneys) he averaged 14.3 FTA.



His assists are down this year as well. 5.4 through 13 games last year, 3.9 this year.



I think there is something to the notion that Jimmer is not getting the calls he "should" be. Jimmer has the ball in his hands an awful lot and drives to the basket an awful lot. I think he should be shooting more FTs. He draws a lot of contact. One thing that doesn't help is the fact that BYU hasn't been in many close games where the opponents are fouling late in the game.



BYU has played five games decided by 10 or less and Jimmer shot 6, 8, 4, 8 and 3 FTAs.



Some comparative numbers:

Jimmer has attempted 67 FTAs and 232 FGAs.

CSU's Travis Franklin has 103 FTAs and just 98 FGAs.

UNM's Dairese Gary has 89 FTAs and 95 FGAs.

Utah's Will Clyburn has 90 FTAs and 160 FGAs.

Utah's Josh Watkins has 70 FTAs and 157 FGAs.

Utah's Jay Watkins has 58 FTAs and 67 FGAs - and he's only played in 8 games.

WYO's Desmar Jackson has 88 FTAs and 148 FGAs.

WYO's Djibril Thaim has 74 FTAs and 106 FGAs.

kitic77 wrote:
Some comparative numbers:

Jimmer has attempted 67 FTAs and 232 FGAs.

CSU's Travis Franklin has 103 FTAs and just 98 FGAs.

UNM's Dairese Gary has 89 FTAs and 95 FGAs.

Utah's Will Clyburn has 90 FTAs and 160 FGAs.

Utah's Josh Watkins has 70 FTAs and 157 FGAs.

Utah's Jay Watkins has 58 FTAs and 67 FGAs - and he's only played in 8 games.

WYO's Desmar Jackson has 88 FTAs and 148 FGAs.

WYO's Djibril Thaim has 74 FTAs and 106 FGAs.

Statistics don't lie, but only if you know what they are trying to tell us.

What I was trying to show is that there appear to be other players who are getting to the line much more frequently than Jimmer - as a ratio of FGAs and FTAs.

kitic77 wrote:
What I was trying to show is that there appear to be other players who are getting to the line much more frequently than Jimmer - as a ratio of FGAs and FTAs.

I absolutely agree with you kitic. I also noticed that there are three players from :utard: in your list.

I've noticed it.



I'm sure a lot of the refs heard in the off-season about how well Jimmer gets to the line, and perhaps even got some negative feedback regarding fans of the sport who think he got special treatment. In my opinion, they're giving Jimmer less calls in a conscious effort to NOT give him as many calls in the name of honesty... but in all reality it's causing them to do the opposite and instead give Jimmer crap treatment. He's taken hits this season that would have put nearly any other player on the line.

kitic77 wrote:

Some comparative numbers:

Jimmer has attempted 67 FTAs and 232 FGAs.

CSU's Travis Franklin has 103 FTAs and just 98 FGAs.

UNM's Dairese Gary has 89 FTAs and 95 FGAs.

Utah's Will Clyburn has 90 FTAs and 160 FGAs.

Utah's Josh Watkins has 70 FTAs and 157 FGAs.

Utah's Jay Watkins has 58 FTAs and 67 FGAs - and he's only played in 8 games.

WYO's Desmar Jackson has 88 FTAs and 148 FGAs.

WYO's Djibril Thaim has 74 FTAs and 106 FGAs.

kitic while I do agree with you I think Jimmer hasn't gone to the line as much as he should have, we should do a little more in depth comparison.



The only players I would compare Jimmers numbers with would be

Dairese Gary

Will Clyburn

Desmar Jackson

the other guys are fowards and shoot almost all their shots around the basket therefore are more likely to get fouled and is probably the biggest reason they have more FT attempts.



It could also be Jimmer has taken a higher number of 3's this year as far as a percentage than other years, except when he was a freshman. This year he already has attempted 95 3's through 13 games, which comes out to 41% of his shots compared to last year when he attempted 175 3's, which accounted for 35% of his shots. This year he is on pace to shatter the number of 3's he took last year. Basically he has shot more 3's than the other have shot FTA and has shot almost as many 3's as all 7 of the above players mentioned 95 - 134.



Now I will admit I haven't seen all of BYU's games this year but the games I have seen I think he could absolutely go to the line more.

Jimmer is also shooting more this year in general. Last year through 13 games he had 187 FGAs, 63 3PAs and 94 FTAs. This year he has 232 FGAs, 95 3PAs and 67 FGAs.



That is 32 additional 3PAs but also 47 additonal FGAs (or an additional 15 2PAs). Yet that has yielded 27 fewer FTAs.



At a minimum, Jimmer "should" have somewhere around 100 FTAs, IMO.

kitic77 wrote:
Jimmer is also shooting more this year in general. Last year through 13 games he had 187 FGAs, 63 3PAs and 94 FTAs. This year he has 232 FGAs, 95 3PAs and 67 FGAs.



That is 32 additional 3PAs but also 47 additonal FGAs (or an additional 15 2PAs). Yet that has yielded 27 fewer FTAs.



At a minimum, Jimmer "should" have somewhere around 100 FTAs, IMO.

I agree

One other factor that might be hurting Jimmer is how strong he is and how good a finisher he is. If you figure he has made/attempted 20 "and-1s" this year, that's 20 addtional FGAs and 20 fewer FTAs.



Maybe if Jimmer wasn't such a good finisher he could be "getting" a few more calls because his FTAs would be higher.

He does seem to be getting less calls this season. Towards the end of last season he was getting banged around quite a bit too. What's frustrating is, teams seem to be more physical with him this season, but he's getting less foul calls.

See, you guys are seeing what I would agree is more telling stats that indicate that Jimmer is not getting the calls that he was last year. It had appeared to me to be the same. My point had been that in that article, the writer was looking at the number of attempts from one year to the next as being the leading indicator and I felt like some of you have done, there were other things that would better indicate that fact or not. I think the point about the increase in 3 point shots taken was a great point in the discussion.



It looks very much like there had been some talk among officials of maybe that Jimmer had been given too much star status and therefore given the benefit of the doubt and the foul last year than he should and so they were attempting to right that scenario. I just wanted to see someone show me that with stats that wouldn't give me a false positive that possibly the correlation only of last year FTA's to this year FTA's.