Shot clock wouldn’t hurt high school basketball

“Boring, boring, boring …”

That was what the Jay County High School student section chanted at the girls IHSAA Class 3A Sectional 24 championship basketball game Feb. 3, and it hit the nail on the head.

Now, I’m no stranger to boring basketball. I obviously grew up watching the Wisconsin Badgers, who play a strict pack-line defense system that doesn’t force a lot of turnovers but also doesn’t allow many great shots. The Badgers historically haven’t attacked in transition, and often used the full time of the shot clock.

Dick Bennett started what would become known as “Badger basketball” as he is recognized for devising the pack-line before Bo Ryan and Greg Gard continued the system.

My high school coach was a student manager on Bennett’s team that made the Final Four in the 1999-2000 season and implemented most of what he learned under the Wisconsin legend at Oak Creek High School.

We were hated in our conference for how patient we were on offense, only shooting layups or threes off of paint touches. We even had opposing student sections chant similarly at us, or they would count our passes. The highest number we hit was 50 passes at Indian Trail Academy, but the Hawks’ student section gave up.

So, like I said, I am not new to boring basketball and I can appreciate boring basketball when it is just a defensive battle.

But what happened between Jay County and Hamilton Heights can’t happen. Indiana needs to consider a shot clock.

Now, the shot clock should be nothing like the NBA. A 24-second clock forces the pace to be elevated to a point where teams need to be constantly pushing to score without any breaks. It doesn’t even need to be the college 30-second. Just something that prevents a team from holding the ball for minutes on end.

Not only is it the most boring thing to watch, but it’s also just not fun to play.

Everyone wants to win in athletics, but to pull the ball out and just let the clock run defeats the purpose of the game. I would never go to the park or a gym to hold a ball and not compete, so why would I want to do it in a competitive setting?

I’ve heard a couple of arguments against the shot clock. The main one is that it would be too much for the kids.

I simply don’t buy this. The amount of times that I covered JCHS girls basketball games and I looked down for half a second to mark off which Patriot grabbed the defensive rebound and I'd already missed the ball advancing to the front court and a shot starting to go up was staggering.

A lot of teams already push the pace, so it wouldn’t really hurt good teams.

For teams that aren’t as skilled, the answer is simple — just implement a longer shot clock. I think the sweet spot would be between 45 and 50 seconds. A 45-second shot clock allows for a team to inbound the ball, take the full 10 seconds in the backcourt, and still have the old college time of 35 seconds to try and attack.

Another argument I’ve heard is that it would lower the level of play and encourage sloppy basketball.

Again, I whole-heartedly disagree.

A shot clock would not cause a team to be worse. If a team can’t find a way to get a good look at the rim after nearly a full minute of offense, it is either clearly outmatched, or it isn’t a good team to begin with.

Any given possession can look worse if a team plays too fast. A shot clock wouldn’t force a team to play faster though, just with more intention. Rather than useless movement and wild attacking, teams would have to learn their offensive schemes better or create one that looks to attack earlier.

Another argument is just that it’s not the way things have always been. However, change isn’t always bad.

The 3-point line wasn’t added until 1986, and we don’t have a problem with that. There have been plenty of other rule changes, like cracking down on hand checking and harsher punishments for egregious fouls. So, to just use “it’s not how it’s always been” is just a bad argument.

If you asked me to write this column three months ago, I think it would have been a different story. I would have said the shot clock isn’t a good or bad thing inherently, but if implemented poorly it can hurt.

I now believe the shot clock belongs at the high school level. It won’t fix every problem. It won’t make every team look good either.

But it will prevent boring basketball.