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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On most occasions when a foul is called on his team, Bo Ryan comes to a complete stop on the sideline, his mouth opens to form a small circle and he stands still in disbelief, as though his 67-year-old frame has&amp;nbsp;temporarily been turned to stone. He stares&amp;nbsp;straight ahead and then his eyes may dart side to side, in frantic search of someone or something that can explain what is going on.\u200B\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this, Ryan is not much different from his peers. There isn\u2019t a coach that likes foul calls. Everyone argues them in search of an edge or perhaps a makeup whistle on the other end. What distinguishes Ryan is a greater purpose behind his reaction. He will not accept the Badgers have committed a foul, due to an ironclad conviction that he meticulously trained his team not to.\u200B\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200B\u201CAccording to him,\u201D Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky says with a smile, \u201Cwe\u2019ve never fouled before.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;No coach in the nation has better odds of being right. The No. 1-seeded Badgers are Big Ten champions and among the final 16 teams alive in the NCAA tournament thanks a comprehensively efficient, methodical style. This includes a guiding philosophy on defense: No foul, no harm. Wisconsin has committed fewer fouls per game than any team in the country, averaging just 12 per night. Barring an uncharacteristically hands-on approach in Thursday's West regional semifinal against North Carolina, this should be the fourth straight year in which the Badgers finish in the top 5 nationally in that category.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One simple way to explain why this is the case with Wisconsin: The fewer opportunities you give an opponent to go to the line, the more you boost your chances to win. Yet the reason for avoiding fouling may be even plainer. \u201CBecause we try not to do dumb stuff,\u201D forward Sam Dekker says. \u201CI mean, that\u2019s a pretty straightforward answer. We try not to be dumb. If you are dumb, and do dumb things, you hear about it. So you have to be as disciplined as you can.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This season there is not much debating the correlation between limiting fouls and success. Of the 10 teams whistled the least on a per-game basis, seven earned NCAA tournament berths, though only Wisconsin and Notre Dame (seventh at 14.2 fouls a night) made the Sweet 16. West Virginia is a Sweet 16 club, too, despite being the most notorious hackers around, at 23.3 fouls per game. But it largely seems worthwhile to avoid the attention of officials as much as possible.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Badgers make it a point of emphasis from the first practice: Players guarding on the perimeter must refrain from grabbing or excessive hand-checking and focus instead on improving footwork and using their lateral quickness to get in position.&amp;nbsp;On the blocks, the primary goal is to prevent an entry to the post entirely. Failing that, Wisconsin frontcourt players are taught to make contact with their chest instead of a forearm or even a leg. Elbows up, arms out. And when a shot goes up, the Badgers prefer to stay planted to the ground. Thus a team with length like the 7-foot&amp;nbsp;Kaminsky, the 6\u20199\u201D Dekker and 6\u201910\u201D reserve Duje Dukan averages just 3.4 blocks per game (173rd nationally). Dekker recalled Ryan telling his big men that if they didn\u2019t pick up a block all season, he wouldn\u2019t care. The Badgers coach was willing to take the tradeoff of limiting trips to the free throw line.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200B&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThere are a few pillars of the program or things that have been consistent through the years and helped us be successful,\u201D Wisconsin associate head coach Greg Gard says. \u201CAnd that\u2019s one of them. They understand if they want to get on the floor and play, they\u2019re going to have to be able to play without fouling.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Near the locker room entrance at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Neb., on an NCAA tournament off-day last week, Gard shrugged off how difficult this is to grasp for new players. The Badgers sitting at stalls a few feet away did not.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a reason freshmen typically don\u2019t flourish in Ryan\u2019s program. \u201CWe have such an organized defensive philosophy,\u201D fifth-year guard Josh Gasser says. \u201CA lot of rules you have to follow. It can be tough to learn.\u201D The coaching staff will demand they learn it, though. Any visitors to Wisconsin practices see two assistants officiating drills and 5-on-5 periods with an eye to improper contact. They might even overcompensate with ticky-tack calls, just to calibrate the players\u2019 mindsets properly.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And if someone isn\u2019t picking it up, Ryan might make him pick up something else. \u201CHell toss them two tennis balls and say, \u2018Hold these tennis balls,\u2019 and that meant you can\u2019t use your hands at all,\u201D Gasser says. \u201CIt\u2019s worked. It\u2019s a weird little thing.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is not fouling, and there is not putting yourself in position to foul. On the latter, the Badgers coaches assume some responsibility as well.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, there are the volumes of officiating knowledge stored in Ryan\u2019s mind from nearly 1,000 games patrolling the sideline at the Division I and Division III levels. Kaminsky says the Badgers coach can cite specific calls made by individual referees years earlier\u2014perhaps because there are so few to remember\u2014which gives his players a point of reference on tendencies. Likewise, the game scouts from assistant coaches will address how an opponent endeavors to draw fouls and how the officials typically react to that. \u201CThey\u2019ve been able to see what they try to do, if they try to pick up fouls in certain manners, and it\u2019s in the report,\u201D Kaminsky says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then there is the structure of the defense itself. It is no surprise that West Virginia, with its game-long full-court pressure, picks up fouls by the dozen. Wisconsin, meanwhile, averages the eighth-fewest possessions in the nation (59.4 per game) and spends 86.7% of its defensive possessions in the half-court, according to Synergy Sports Data.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, the coaches couldn\u2019t ask players to keep their hands to themselves and simultaneously ask for 40 minutes of harassment. The system has to suit the individual instructions. \u201CWe\u2019re not getting out on an island or trying to create large gaps,\u201D Gard says. \u201CWe\u2019re going to try to keep you more in front of us, and force people to have to shoot over the top of us. And not get extended where we\u2019re out always playing defense one on one. We\u2019re trying to make offenses play against our five set defenders as much as possible.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;His boss has always been a big baseball guy, Gard says, \u201CSo you try to play percentages.\u201D If a team doesn\u2019t foul and give up easy points, if it doesn\u2019t have players on the bench due to foul trouble, then it is likely forcing tough, contested shots with its best five on the floor. It is a simple concept that is easy to grasp. And at the most fundamental level, Wisconsin tries to be good at things that don\u2019t take talent.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is why Ryan\u2019s fits of rage over foul calls are often sights to behold; it screws up his beloved percentages. In the first half of a Round of 64 win over Coastal Carolina, Dekker guarded a Chanticleers player who drove and then drop-stepped toward a shot at the rim. The Badgers\u2019 junior was whistled for a foul after the spin move. Ryan was incensed to begin with, and then he had the good fortune of seeing a video replay on arena screens, which reinforced his stance that his player hadn't done anything to draw a whistle.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before the ensuing free throws, Ryan began shouting at Dekker that he\u2019d done nothing wrong, that it was good defense, that it was no foul. An official told him to pipe down. \u201CWhat? I have to shout so he can hear me,\u201D Ryan replied, and it was a wonder they didn\u2019t call over ball boys to mop up the sarcasm dripping on the court.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CIt\u2019s more just competitive nature,\u201D Gasser says. \u201CYou want to win so badly on every single possession that you just can\u2019t believe that foul cost us winning that possession.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wisconsin finds itself in that predicament less often than any team in the country. It is a program built on avoiding the avoidable\u2014the Badgers are also No. 1 nationally with just 7.4 turnovers per game\u2014and fouls fall into that category. Unlike an errant pass or shoddy dribbling, however, there is only so much to control there. Wisconsin can do everything right, shuffling into position without jabbing or bumping the offensive player, and the whistle may follow anyway.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It may send their coach into a spasm of fury. But for the moments following those rare foul calls, the Badgers are well trained about hand position as well: They just throw them up in the air.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CRefs are human, too,\u201D Kaminsky says. \u201CWe understand they also make mistakes.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200B\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2015/03/24/wisconsin-ncaa-tournament-fouls>