Broken Nose

[just another ref]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

Based upon your description, you made the proper call.
Contact during a LIVE ball is never a technical foul. The coach is 100% wrong. You have nothing to fear from a report to the state office. File an injury report if you need to. I bet that you are glad that you called a foul on the play even though it was in your partner's area. I wonder what his reaction was when he learned that the player was hit hard enough to break her nose and he didn't believe that a foul was warranted. (Of course, an injury isn't always conclusive proof that something illegal occurred, but it does make for an easy whistle.)

Your choices were: common foul = PC foul, intentional personal foul, flagrant personal foul.

Remember that the guard is not required to give the ball handler any time or distance as long as the guard does not make contact. If the offensive player violates the guard's vertical space and places that player at a disadvantage, a foul on the offensive player should be called.

There are times when contact will occur due to the normal pivoting movement and not be a foul as it will not place any player at a disadvantage. In that case, it should be deemed incidental contact.

Just don't fail to protect the defender who has a right to that space in the same manner as you always hear about protecting the shooter.

Nevada, as usual, is right and very thoroughly covers the situation. To expand a little further in part I find that contact with the head or face is a no call more often than one might think. In the first place, it is hard to see. Why? Because the official's focus is on the ball, the hands, the feet, basically anywhere but the face. In the second place, often the contact is a result of the defender literally sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, resulting in either a small amount of incidental contact or a blocking foul.