Press Box: Numbers tough to add up to change prep basketball

News Tribune Sports Commentary

It's feeling like "Groundhog Day" for me while attending high-school basketball games lately, as I seem to be living the same day over and over.

What's the main culprit for this feeling? The fact that I keep having to engage in the discussion about the game needing a shot clock. I've had it many times before, but for reasons I can't understand, it seems to be gaining traction as of late.

It's a complex issue, and one that engenders passionate feelings on both sides. While the gulf between those two sides seems to be untenable at times, I think there's a way to make both sides happy. But first, let's look at some key points.

For proponents of the shot clock, there seem to be two big issues. One, they see the high-school game as boring, with too many teams letting the air out of the ball. And two, it doesn't call to mind college and pro basketball.

As far as the first issue goes, as someone who keeps stats at 30-40 games per season and watches countless others, I have to disagree. It's very rare to see an out-and-out stall game, with that type of tactic usually only seen in end-of-quarter situations where a team is holding the ball for the last shot.

Those people use the term "stall game" like it's a curse word, but I have no problem with it. The thing about high-school basketball is you're stuck with the players you've got. There's no recruiting players (unless you're cheating, of course) and there's no redshirting players from loaded teams to keep them around for years when the talent cupboard is bare (and believe me, some coaches wish they were so lucky).

If coaches feel their only chance against teams with better personnel than theirs is to take the air out of the ball, I'm all for it.

While it's not as glamorous as scoring, when a team can manage to move the ball around the court to run time off the clock while under pressure from the defense, it's an admirable skill. Now, if a team wants to hold the ball near half-court in an attempt to draw the defense out of a zone, it's definitely boring. But I blame the defenses that sit in the lane and refuse to force the issue, rather than the offenses holding the ball.

And as far as wanting to resemble the game at its upper levels, I vehemently oppose that idea. High-school teams shouldn't try to play an NBA-type game, because they don't have NBA-type players. For that matter, most don't have college-type players, either.

After a quick perusal of several online sites, it appears that somewhere between 3 and 6 percent of high-school seniors will play college basketball. So it seems to be a bad idea to play the college game without a wealth of college-ready players.

People who want a shot clock also point to the idea it will increase scoring, although a number of studies have shown that in states that utilize a shot clock in high school (California, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington), the numbers aren't drastically different than those that don't.

That suggests something I've thought for a long time - just because you shoot quicker and more often, that's not necessarily going to solve your woes. There are several times in each game where teams have trouble running plays properly. Making them have to do it with a greater sense of urgency will be a recipe for disaster.

Aside from these semantic arguments, the biggest problem for implementing a shot clock is one I didn't think of before doing a deeper dive into the issue.

Countless stories talk about the physical adjustments that would be necessary - whether it be adding the hardware to gyms (costing from $2,000-5,000, according to most reports) or finding people to staff the scorers' table at games. Lest you think that second one is a small item, realize that the National Federation of State High School Associations has pointed out what you do at one level, you must do at all.

So if you've got someone running the shot clock, it won't be at just the varsity games. You'll need someone doing it for JV and freshman games as well.

So let's say schools can get past the cost and staffing issues and it's just the philosophical issues about shot clocks that remain. What's to be done?

I say to take it slow, drawing inspiration from how it came to be in the college game.

Rather that jumping in and doing the same thing the NBA has done since instituting the 24-second clock in the 1954-55 season, the NCAA started slow. It went with 45 seconds for the men's game in the 1985-86 season, only adjusting it down after nearly a decade, with it going to 35 seconds for the 1993-94 season.

It dropped it again this season, moving down to 30.

So let's begin with something even slower, like 50-60 seconds. Sure, it won't make either side happy, but that's often the best way to start.