Should South Carolina high school basketball have a shot clock?
Now a senior and a starter on the South Pointe basketball team, Pete Branham remembers the final game of his sophomore season.
But not in a good way.
“They just took a lead and held the ball. We were coming back slowly but we just didn’t have enough time,” Branham said about the Stallions’ playoff loss to Byrnes two years ago in the first round of the 4A boys’ basketball playoffs.
The Rebels jumped out to a big lead early. No. 1 seed South Pointe began to make momentum-shifting plays, sparking a comeback that spanned the third and fourth quarters. Byrnes’ reaction was to slow the game down, swinging the ball around as seconds melted off the clock. South Pointe was helpless.
“This game, like a lot of games in high school could have gone very different,” Byrnes coach Layne Fowler said last week. “When a team gets a big lead they begin to start playing keep-away simply because it’s effective.”
In high school basketball, stalling has always been a strategy used by teams like Fowler’s 2013-14 Byrnes team, an underdog looking to upset a top seed.
That doesn’t stop fans, coaches, and even players from complaining when the team with the lead spends the last minutes of the game passing the seconds off the clock, leaving the trailing team in a state of fouling desperation. One possible solution? A shot clock, following the NBA and NCAA’s lead.
States with a high school basketball shot clock
When it comes to the high school level of basketball, there are just as many advocates as there are naysayers on the issue of instituting a shot clock. Those supporting the shot clock believe that it would only help the game, improving the style of play and the individual talent of each player.
The other side takes the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach, believing that the game is played at a sufficient level and that the associated costs may be prohibitive.
For those that do support the use of a shot clock at the high school level it is relatively simple: they believe that better basketball will result.
Melvin Watson is the boys’ basketball coach at South Pointe. An All-SEC point guard for the South Carolina Gamecocks in the late 1990s, Watson is a big supporter of the shot clock, despite his team employing a fast paced, run and jump style of hoops.
“I think the disadvantage of not having a shot clock is that teams can hold the ball. I mean it’s a good coaching strategy once you get up and teams that like to play zone have to play man to man,” he said. “When I was in college, I thought it was a great tool of speeding the game up and it was more fun for people to watch.”
Another key point that supporters of the shot clock table is they believe players will improve if they’re playing with a limited amount of time on each possession. Running more offensive plays – along with the importance of shot selection – would lead to better players. And Rock Hill girls’ coach Kenny Orr thinks that teaching defense would be easier if there was a reward – a shot clock violation and turnover – for players attentively defending for a set period of time.
The National Federation of State High School Associations believes that high school basketball does not need a shot clock. But the decision is ultimately left up to the individual states. Eight states use a shot clock in high school basketball: California, Massachusetts, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington employ it for boys and girls, while Maryland uses a shot clock only in the girls’ game.
Lengths of girls and boys’ basketball shot clocks, by state
Cindy Adist, assistant executive director of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, said there was vocal criticism about high school teams stalling in Washington state.
“After the shot clock was passed it eliminated those complaints,” she said. “I can’t sit here and say that every coach likes it but the issue of holding the ball has been addressed.”
The consequence of parting with the NFHS’ standing is the shot clock states aren’t allowed a position on the federation’s voting board, prohibiting them to vote on certain issues.
While there are those who support a shot clock in high school ball, there are of course those who do not. Believing that the game is being played at a sufficient level, why change something that doesn’t need to be fixed?
John Bramlett is the boys’ basketball coach at Northwestern and no fan of a high school shot clock.
“The biggest thing is it takes away strategy some coaches use to slow down the game,” said Bramlett. “The shot clock takes away fundamentals of coaching in teaching kids to share the ball, move the ball on defenses to get a great shot.”
One of the biggest obstacles for a high school shot clock in the state of South Carolina is economics. Base models of a shot clock start at approximately $2,000 and can reach prices of over $5,000.
The price of the actual shot clock isn’t the only financial hitch. According to the South Carolina High School League, high school referees make $55 to $85 a night on the varsity level. Adding a shot clock operator would inflate the cost of hosting high school basketball games.
John Combs, the boys’ basketball coach at Ridge View and the director of the South Carolina Basketball Coaches Association, stressed the financial concern in a phone interview.
“You know you would have to pay to get the shot clock and then pay someone to run the shot clock and I really think money is a big issue with it. I really think it is mainly a financial situation,” Combs said.
Watson was on the sidelines when Byrnes put his Stallions in a time-wasting headlock two years ago.
After South Pointe dug its big hole, Watson knew Fowler and the Rebels would milk the clock, and he didn’t blame them for executing that strategy. But that game – and the thousands like it that happen every year – beg the question of which is more important: playing the game the best way or doing whatever it takes to win? To this point, financial factors seem to trump both of those questions.
Shot clock history
In the 1950s the game of basketball was generally played at a turtle-paced tempo, with teams holding the ball and forcing fouls. The solution was a 24-second shot clock, helping rescue professional basketball from a state of boredom. Years later, the NCAA followed the NBA’s lead and introduced a 30-second shot clock in women’s college basketball. Fifteen years later, a 45-second shot clock was introduced in the men’s game, before being shortened to 35 seconds in the 1993 season and then to 30 in 2015.
This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 3:47 PM with the headline "Should South Carolina high school basketball have a shot clock?."