It’s a slam dunk
The time has come for a shot clock to be used statewide
There isn’t a controversy. We are long past a basketball debate. Anyone who has followed the evolution of the sport knows it’s a no-brainer.
The shot clock is a necessary part of the fabric of the modern game.
The cost of buying and installing shot clocks, the cost of a person to operate it is another matter. Those can be overcome and certainly a full effort should be done so, but as far as the competition?
If the CIAC boys and girls basketball committees Wednesday do anything short of pushing the process full speed ahead toward ultimate approval by the CIAC membership … they will have failed the high school game in Connecticut.
In an informal survey of the state’s boys basketball coaches by GameTimeCT before last season, 76 of 87 were in favor a shot clock. In this day and age, it’s nearly impossible to get 87.4 percent to agree on anything. The coaches know their game best.
Did my own survey. Talked to Calvin Murphy, the greatest player in CIAC history.
Talked to Ken Smith of Windsor, Luke Reilly of East Catholic and John Mirabello of Northwest Catholic, arguably the three best high school coaches in the state.
Talked to Tom Espinosa, who has coached Putnam Science Academy to two national prep school titles and whose team plays with a 35-second shot clock.
All five are staunchly for the shot clock.
“Absolutely, absolutely,”
said Murphy, who played at Norwalk and ended up in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. “You don’t want to inhibit the players’ ability to play the game. A shot clock speeds the game up a little more, as opposed to walking the ball up and passing it 15 times before an athlete can do what they do best.”
Reilly said he hasn’t talked to one person who is opposed to a shot clock.
“I think it’s best for the game,” Reilly said. “It’s important to keep it current and keep evolving. I just think it’s the natural order of things. Our surrounding states, the prep schools are using the shot clock. To stay relevant, I think it’s important to adopt it.”
Smith said he was on the committee a dozen years ago and failed twice to get a shot clock adopted when the coaches supported it 75 percent. Mirabello said votes come, votes go, the debate spikes, disappears, returns.
“This time there may finally be traction,” he said.
The National Federation of High Schools State High School Associations finally approved the use of a shot clock in the spring. Not mandated. Approved its use.
“Every time I talk to a recruit,” said Espinosa, who runs a national program, “one of the first questions I ask is, ‘Did you play with a shot clock?’ It’s crazy how many still don’t.”
Although New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island use one, only eight have used a shot clock in defiance of the NFHS. With NFHS approval, the number will rise.
No, teams haven’t been going into a stall every other game. There hasn’t been a slew of 10-8 games haunting Connecticut. Yet a particularly frustrating scenario plays out so often with teams leading in the fourth quarter. It is a hole in our high school game that is continually exploited by teams, inferior and superior. It’s obviously within the rules, but it’s a hole 42 states need to fill. Pronto. Here it goes:
We’ve got a heck of a game going between two good teams. The lead has changed hands all night. The Blues are ahead by three with seven minutes remaining. An iffy call against the Reds leads to two free throws. A defensive stop on the other end leads to a long 3-pointer. Bang! Suddenly it is an eight-point lead for the Blues. Another defensive stop. Blues’ ball with five minutes left. They pull it out, go four corners, sit on it.
One quick run at the start of the fourth quarter suddenly turns a tight game into 1946.
“I think a lot of people feel the way you do,” Mirabello said.
“It can be exciting when a definite underdog does it, the old Princeton style,” Reilly said. “But otherwise it can be frustrating, definitely frustrating.”
The Reds come out, try to trap, and foul. Free throws. Reds foul again. More free throws. Great game ruined. Instead of a battle to the finish, we see five excruciating minutes of slop. Similar variations happen all the time.
“It’s only fun for the team that wins,” Reilly said.
I want to run out, grab the ball and sprint for the parking lot. But I’m slow, they’d catch me and throw me in jail.
“There are some people who think the clock comes in and the scores will be in the 90s in high school,” Mirabello said. “That’s a misconception.”
I found a MaxPreps 50state study of 137,000 games from seven years ago that showed the scores by states using the clock and not using the clock are essentially the same.
In the GameTimeCT poll, 30 were in favor of 35 seconds, 31 in favor of 30 seconds. My survey was split, too, with an element of either way is fine.
“The reason I’m for it is it prepares the kids for the next level,” Smith said. “Another reason is the strategy when you want to hold the ball, (the shot clock) makes you have to execute. You have fast athletes now who don’t know how to win. When a kid understands he has to execute something, that’s when you find out what he’s all about.”
There are some people who say 1. forget the next level. Only a small percentage go on to play in college.
2. Forget what the fans want. It’s about the players.
3. Quickening the pace will result in an erosion of fundamentals.
“I also remember people were saying if you don’t have a shot clock the underdog has a much better chance of winning,” Espinosa said. “I don’t agree with that completely. You have a shot clock, you’re the underdog, you’re playing a super-athletic team, and you pack it in and play 25 seconds of tough zone defense. Get a stop.”
Then go down and manage the shot clock offensively. Run a motion offense.
There can be wide discrepancies in pace with a shot clock. Coppin State averaged 80.8 possessions in a 40-minute game with a 30-second clock last year. Virginia averaged 62.4. UConn was 291st of 347 at 68.5.
“With a shot clock, it becomes like the college game,” Reilly said. “Early clock action. Late clock action. From a defensive standpoint, you’re going to try to put (opponents) in late clock situations. From the players’ standpoint, they’ll sometimes be forced to makes some plays late on the clock that would have been frowned upon.
“We had a shot clock when we’ve played at the Hoophall (Classic). I found it way less a factor than you may think.”
Kids are big fans, Mirabello said. They see how the game has evolved and is played around the world. They are old enough to want to play that way. They understand stuff like using the clock to get two shots for one at the end of a half. And if players are forced into rushed shots at the end of a possession? Viva defense. Viva smart offensive play that avoids it.
The game becomes more strategic. Not less. Beyond teamwork and learning how to win and lose, learning how to react mentally and physically under duress is a key component of high school sports.
“The shot clock is good for the IQ of kids,” Mirabel- lo said. “And for long-time coaches it’s a little exciting to adjust to.”
The CIAC had a survey in April. Athletic directors were 58 percent for a clock. Gregg Simon, CIAC associ- ate executive director, told our Joe Morelli a wireless shot clock could cost between $1,500 and $2,500 to install. If the 42 percent of the ADs were against it for any reason except for the cost, well, they’ve been watching “Hoosiers” too many times. And if it’s because of money, I’d suggest earn it with proactivity.
Some manufacturers should be smart enough to get out in front of this and sell in bulk at a discount to leagues or state associations. Install them. Show how they are used. Profit in quantity. And for towns in need, high school booster clubs and parents can run a fundraiser.
Calvin Murphy harkened back 50 years and how Hank Iba and the selection of the players became outdated and cost the USA an Olympic gold medal in 1972. Sometimes, he said, younger blood needs to do the thinking. A shot clock moves the sport into the 21st century where it belongs.