Eyepoke
 

I had a situation last night in my game and am looking for input. I am C and have A1 with the ball right in front of me defended by B1. B1 swats at the ball and apparently pokes A1 in the eye which I do not see. A1 cradles the ball with one arm and covers his eye with his other hand then starts to pivot on his pivot foot in pain.

Do you call a late foul? Call an officials timeout for his injury? Play on? What are your thoughts?

I've had this situation before. If you realize it fast enough you can come with a late whistle for a foul. Still, some will say if you don't actually see the foul you can't call it.

The 2 or 3 times I've come with a late foul whistle no one has ever complained.

If you're reffing in Texas, this is called a "cowpoke". :p

Don't call a foul if you don't see it. Stop the play for injury, player has to come out.

Blow the whistle. It's a foul.

Blow the whistle for the foul. Give the player a chance to recover before forcing the substitution.

Perhaps the most succinctly wrong post in a long time.

or at least since lunch time:D

He gets props here for being succinct and wrong. It's not easy to wrong twice when you're only posting two sentences.
Apparently, when one gets bored with taking all the trophies, one must create new categories.

Calling a foul, however late, is the best way to handle this situation. Nobody will complain....if they do, then you know you've got someone who can be ignored for the rest of the game.

I've no-called this before (early in my career) and regretted it. I knew what happened but didn't call it because I didn't "see" it. I stopped play for the injury to give A1 a moment to recover. He played on. Should have called the foul.

What, have you guys lost your mind! Call a foul that you didn't see! How in the sam blue hill you gonna tell a ref to call a foul they didn't see? What if the player is faking? Did you ever think of that? This is why you make him sit down. He could be faking, since I'm not sure, I'm going to side on the side of caution. If he's not hurt great, he can now sit down for faking an injury. If he is hurt, great we can get somebody to attend to it. If the coach wants to complain about missing a foul here. Well, guess what coach, players miss F/T too, it happens.

Geece...I can't believe you would penalize a player for a foul when you didn't see. That's teaching them...

That's more like it. Take your time, take a deep breath, and be thoroughly wrong.

I have always ruled an inadvertent poke in the eye to not be a foul. I simply stop the game and give the player a moment or two to recover. Invariably the opponent is apologetic and the game continues nicely.

That's just what works for me.

It seems that I've seen more of this, this season, so just my two cents:
...if I didn't see the poke, I have a hard time calling a foul. If need be, however I do call my time and give the offensive player time to recover. Like earlier posts -- the player can stay in the game and I warn the defensive player.
...if I saw the defensive player make a play I considered unsafe, I have called a foul...and warned him (or at least looked at him a bit sternly).

We actually had a game early this year where a coach apparently taught a technique to his players to get in a good defensive position with hands down -- but then bring their hands up in efforts to make a steal. I thought the first 'inadvertent' slap up someone's face was just that. But then it happened again and we called a foul. The third time (not the same player) we called a technical and the coach got the players to tone their actions back a bit.