If you’ve ever been confused as to why one of the best players in the country might not be playing in crunch time of a key game, too many personal fouls is likely the culprit.

With 3:29 remaining in a tight 2022 Sweet 16 showdown between No. 1 seed Gonzaga and No. 4 seed Arkansas, soon-to-be No. 2 overall NBA Draft pick Chet Holmgren strode to the bench with 11 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks, never to return.

Holmgren had committed five personal fouls, which since 1952 has been grounds for expulsion from a college basketball game. He fouled out.

For fans of football, baseball or hockey trying to get into basketball for the first time, fouling out must be a bizarre concept. In all four sports, a player can be ejected for a single indiscretion. And it’s plenty common in each sport for the coach to decide that a player has messed up too many times and needs to get comfy on the bench. But for the arbiter of the game to determine when a player has committed too many minor infractions is a uniquely basketball thing.

What are the various types of fouls, though? And, again, how many do you get in the college game?

NCAA Foul Rules: How Many Are Allowed Per Player?

While NBA players don’t get disqualified until committing their sixth personal foul of the game, individual college basketball players (both in the men’s and women’s game) are only permitted five fouls per game.

From a length-of-game perspective, this checks out. There are 48 minutes in an NBA game compared to 40 in college. In both cases, that’s eight minutes per foul.

It always seems to be more of a problem in college than in the NBA, though, doesn’t it? You might watch an entire day’s worth of NBA games without seeing a single player foul out, but looking for a college basketball box score without at least one player who either fouled out or had minutes significantly reduced due to foul trouble is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

And in March Madness, it only takes one, maybe two questionable whistles against a key player to completely derail a championship contender’s dream. There has been a push to increase the number of fouls for disqualification in the college game, yet it has remained at five for decades.

Types of Fouls in College Basketball

There are three types of fouls in college basketball, all of which count against a player’s DQ tally for that game.

Personal Fouls

Personal fouls are your standard, illegal contact infractions. Most personal fouls are committed by the defense in their quest to prevent the team with the ball from getting an easy look at a bucket.

An on-ball defender might inadvertently hit the ball handler’s arm while trying to force a steal, or hit the shooter’s arm while trying to get a block. An off-ball defender may grab a player’s arm or jersey to slow them down, or otherwise initiate contact with a member of the attacking team. Any of the above would be deemed a personal foul (or, common foul).

Players on offense can commit personal fouls, too. An illegal/moving screen can be called against players who set picks and either do not have their feet set or clearly lean into defenders as an act of obstruction.

Then there’s the whole block/charge debate, where it’s a charge if the defender is set or in legal guarding position before the player on offense — usually the ball handler, but charges can happen away from the ball — initiates contact. Otherwise, it’s a block, which in this case is a foul on the defender.

The block/charge debate has raged in college basketball for decades and will probably never go away because it is inherently a judgment call, no matter how much the verbiage of the rules change.

It is, however, possible for the refs to assess a double foul in instances where it is deemed that both the defender was not set and the driver was out of control. That virtually never happens, and everyone becomes equally enraged with the referees when it does.

Double fouls do get called every once in a while when two players are jostling for a loose ball, whether battling for position on a rebound or mutually shoving and grabbing to get to a ball on the floor.

Flagrant Fouls

These are the fouls that are, well, flagrant. They’re blatant, undisguised and audacious.

Choose whichever synonym registers best for you, but flagrant fouls are those which go above and beyond the typical scope of play.

Within the flagrant foul category in college basketball, there’s a flagrant-1 and flagrant-2 differentiation.

Flagrant-1 fouls are the less severe ones. More often than not, they tend to occur either on fast-break opportunities when a defender grabs a player without making any legitimate play on the ball, or on block attempts where the would-be dunker and would-be rejector collide with quite a bit of force. (Or, when Grayson Allen was still at Duke, intentionally tripping an opponent.)

It’s usually either that breed of “excessive but not exactly egregious” contact, or whatever point of emphasis the NCAA is trying to make in that particular season. Sometimes, it’s inadvertent elbows to the head and/or neck area. In other years, it’s been the ‘hook-and-hold’ plays, which have caused some serious injuries and need to be eradicated, however possible.

Basically, flagrant-1 fouls are the result of ‘non-basketball’ plays that aren’t necessarily violent or meant to cause injury, whereas flagrant-2 fouls are the really excessive ones, which result in the offending player being ejected from the game.

Both classes of flagrant fouls result in two free throws and possession of the ball for the team being fouled, and both can be determined by video review. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a flagrant foul to be assessed on a play in which a personal foul was not initially called, especially for a cheap shot that the officials didn’t catch in real time.

Technical Fouls

Technical fouls (techs, for short) almost always have nothing to do with making contact with the opposing team, and rather are doled out for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Taunting is a big one, whether it’s a staredown or a few choice words after a statement block, a vicious dunk or a huge three-pointer.

On the dunk front, players can also be assessed a technical foul for hanging on the rim, though there’s a pretty big gray area in between “I’m going to milk this moment” and “With all that momentum I built up, I’m going to flip and land on my neck if I let go immediately, so I’m going to swing for a moment to avoid that injury.”

Showing up the official or making physical contact with the official is another big one. That’s most commonly assessed to coaches/benches for yelling about a (missed) call, but it’s not uncommon to have one called against a player on the court who crosses the proverbial line.

Flopping, or faking a foul, can also result in a technical foul. It’s usually a warning for the first offense and a technical thereafter.

Players can get a technical foul for delay of game by throwing or kicking a ball — or, as Chris Webber found out in the 1993 National Championship game, for calling a timeout when your team is out of them.

There are also the more technical techs, like having too many players on the court, leaving the coach’s box, or improperly subbing in/out of the game.

The vast majority of technical fouls result in one free throw and possession of the ball for the other team. And if the same player or coach receives two technical fouls, that person is ejected.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a player be ejected from the game without fouling out?

Absolutely. A flagrant-2 foul is an immediate ejection, regardless of how many personal fouls the player had prior to that moment.

A rule was also instituted prior to the 2023-24 season whereby three flagrant-1 fouls results in an ejection, though it’s hard to imagine a player racking up three flagrant fouls without also committing five total fouls.

A player can be ejected without ever stepping foot on the court, too. Someone on the bench could get two technical fouls for vulgar language or delaying the game in some way. Or if a player on the bench leaves the bench area during a scuffle or participates in a fight, that would be an immediate ejection.

Deliberately going into the stands for any reason can also result in an ejection.

So, it’s five per player, but how many fouls is a team allowed in college basketball?

The limit is really just five times the number of players on the roster, which is usually around 13. So, let’s call 65 the limit?

There actually have been a few cases where teams had to play short-handed because so much of the roster either fouled out, got ejected or was injured.

The most memorable instance of this came in a game between Alabama and Minnesota on Nov. 25, 2017. During an altercation with more than 13 minutes remaining in regulation, the entire Crimson Tide bench was ejected for coming onto the court. Two minutes later, one of their five remaining players fouled out. And about a minute after that, another player suffered an injury, leaving them to play 3-on-5 for the final 10 minutes and 41 seconds.

What made that one extra memorable is Alabama was down by 13 when the injury occurred, yet nearly pulled off the comeback, going on a 26-16 run before running out of gas.

What about this ‘one-and-one’ and ‘double bonus’ business?

In men’s college basketball, once a team commits its seventh personal foul of the half, the other team is awarded a one-and-one opportunity — one free throw and if you make it, you get a second — any time a foul is committed by the defense in a non-shooting situation. Offensive fouls do not result in free throws, but do count against the team’s total fouls for the half.

Once that team total reaches 10 fouls, it becomes a double bonus, where the player who drew the foul gets two shots, regardless of whether the first is successful. Team fouls reset to zero at halftime; individual fouls do not reset, even in cases of multiple overtimes, which can turn into wars of attrition.

In women’s college basketball, however, they use quarters instead of halves, and it is simply a double bonus situation once a team reaches five fouls in a quarter. There are no one-and-one situations in the women’s game.

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