WIAA adds shot clock for 2019-’20.

35-second timer begins in 2019-’20

STEVENS POINT – The shot clock is coming to high school basketball in Wisconsin.

The WIAA Board of Control on Thursday approved by a 6-4 margin the use of a 35-second shot clock for varsity games beginning with the 2019’20 season.

The change, once implemented, would be the second major change in the high school game in the state in recent years. In 2015 the WIAA approved the use of 18-minute halves rather than 8minute quarters.

The design of that move was to improve the flow of play and eliminate the holding of the ball that sometimes occurred at the end of quarters. The addition of a shot clock could also change the flow of play.

Other states that use a shot clock for high school basketball are Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, Washington, New York, California, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Milwaukee Public Schools administrator Eric Coleman, a former basketball coach, was one of the board members who supported the shot clock’s adoption.

“Flow of the game,” he said when asked what he liked about adding a shot clock. “I think along with how going to halves has changed the way coaches have coached, the shot clock will change the way people coach, the way the game is approached, the way the game is played.”

The recommendation to add a shot clock didn’t receive complete support as it worked its way through the WIAA legislative channels. The Coaches Committee supported it unanimously, but Sports Advisory and the Advisory Council did not support the idea. The WIAA executive staff was split.

WIAA associate director Deb Hauser told the board that in a Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association survey, 81% of respondents were in favor of a 35-second shot clock.

Key to it meeting the board’s approval was an amendment that pushed the start of the shot clock’s use to the 2019-’20 season in order to give schools more time to add clocks or update their scoreboards as well as train people to run the clock. The recommendation initially called for its implementation in 2018-’19.

Hauser told the board that the shot clocks would cost $2,000 to $2,400 and noted that the WBCA was “working already to find a corporate sponsor or a company that may give schools a deal state-wide.” The clocks would also require an additional worker at the scorer’s table.

The vote on the shot clock highlighted a meeting during which a number of impactful measures were passed.

By a 9-1 vote the Board approved a twoyear experiment that will split the boys hockey tournament into two divisions. The experiment will begin in 2019-’20 and will place the schools with the 32 smallest enrollments into Division 2. Four teams would qualify for the state tournament in each division. The girls tournament format would remain unchanged.

The initial proposal would have still sent eight teams to the Division 1 state tournament and increased the number of girls state qualifiers from four to eight. That measure was amended so that the state tournament would fit into the threeday format at Alliant Energy Center in Madison and the TV broadcast schedule.

The Board approved seeding of the state tournaments for team wrestling and basketball beginning next season.

For basketball, coaches will seed the four teams with a representative from the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association breaking any ties.

For wrestling, the top four teams in Division 1 will be seeded with the remaining four placed randomly. For Divisions 2 and 3, the coaches in those divisions will meet and seed the top two teams in each division with the remaining teams in each division placed by random draw.