Who needs a clock at the end of a game? Not the CEBL

League of Honey Badgers, River Lions adopts ‘Elam Ending’ used in NBA all-star game, for final four minutes of play

HAMILTON — Some of the most exciting basketball finishes, ever, are the ones nobody ever sees because they happen in your driveway, where the first team to 10 always wins.

The Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) hopes to change the “nobody ever sees” part during its Summer Series, with all 26 games broadcast on the CBC’S over-the-air or streaming platforms.

The seven-team pro league’s compressed sophomore season, opening July 25 in St. Catharines, will feature the innovative “Elam Ending,” which eliminates the game clock late in the final four minutes of the match, replacing it with a “target” score.

First team to hit that bull’seye wins. Just like in your driveway.

“My initial reaction wasn’t positive,” new Hamilton Honey Badgers head coach Ryan Schmidt confesses. “But I did the research and now I’m pretty excited about it. I look at it as challenging me to grow as a coach.”

There are a lot of technical tweaks, but the concept is essentially this: At the first stoppage of play within the final four minutes of the last quarter, nine points are added to the total of the team that’s ahead at the moment. Whichever team is first to reach that new total is the winner.

So, if the Badgers are up 10092 on the reigning league champion Saskatchewan Rattlers

when the first whistle is blown in the final four minutes or later, the new target score for both teams becomes 109. And the Badgers would need nine more points to win, the Rattlers 17 more.

The concept, invented by Ball State University professor Nick Elam, has been used for four seasons by winner-take-all The Basketball Tournament, currently being played in Columbus, Ohio. The NBA also used it for the entire final quarter of this year’s all-star game. The NBA is also rumoured to be considering an Elam Ending for overtime games.

Elam himself formulated the nine-point margin and other details, working with CEBL vice-president Josh Knoester to adhere to rules specific to the final two minutes of FIBA, the sports international overseer.

“I liked it from a marketing point of view,” says league CEO Mike Morreale, who investigated the idea two years ago. “Not every coach and GM was excited by it, but they have all bought into it, and said this is a great teaching opportunity. Plus, there will always be a winning basket, so there will be a ‘hero’ created every game.”

In addition to the last-shot factor, the Elam Ending is engineered to speed up the stutterstep pace of the final four minutes, which can often take 15 or more minutes of real time to complete.

“Actually, the first six minutes of the fourth quarter may be just as important as, or more than, the Elam,” Schmidt told The Hamilton Spectator. “You want to build up a bigger lead, or soften the blow a bit if you’re behind, cut a 10-point lead down to three or four. But what you normally teach for the final minutes is out the window because the clock goes off.

“And you start exploring what kind of lineups are going to be better, and what defensive approach you should use.”

The Honey Badgers play the Niagara River Lions on July 25 at 1:30 p.m., in the front end of an opening-day doubleheader on CBC national TV.

Training camps open next Friday within a medically supervised hub bubble concept, with players reporting for COVID-19 tests four days earlier. American players are in the midst of their 14-day quarantine.

“With everything not normal at all this year,” Morreale said of the Elam Ending, “this was the perfect time to try it.”