Stall Ball ...

[ilyazhito]

Originally Posted by SC Official

This is such a solution looking for a problem.

If you operate under the assumption that this type of basketball is an abomination and should be banned, the reality is that it's only employed in a microscopic percentage of high school games. Based on social media you would think half of the high school coaches in the country employ stall ball; that's simply not true. Why don't more defenses pressure opponents that play this style of offense and force them to do something?

Cost is a big deal whether or not people like to hear it. Granted, I find it humorous to hear schools b*tch and moan about not having money to give officials a modest pay increase while simultaneously rolling out the "latest and greatest" new uniforms every year and spending a fortune to make their gyms look the best in the state. A shot clock sounds great until administrators see the price tag just for the equipment; then there are the installation costs as well as having to pay and train someone competent enough to run the thing correctly. Heck some schools have scoreboards that are so old that I'm not even sure it's possible to synchronize and wire the shot clocks; so now you're asking them to buy new scoreboards, as well. And many schools have more than one gym.

For as many issues as there are running shot clocks correctly at the small college level, those problems get magnified in high school and turn into big headaches for officials. Also there are so many 20-year "veteran" officials that I would not feel comfortable managing the shot clock and learning all the rules (in many cases they can't even manage the game clock).

What is the reward of enduring these growing pains? To be more like college? To force more (bad) shots?

Also, people forget that this is high school basketball. A coach's job is to employ the best strategy for his/her team to win. At the high school level the talent spectrum is much wider than the college level, so it's not unreasonable that the rules allow for more strategies to be competitive regardless of how "entertaining" they may be. HS sports do not exist to entertain fans nor to "get kids ready for the next level."

At most I could see the NFHS making this an allowable state adoption. I do not see it being mandated nationwide. And if it were it wouldn't be immediate; there would be a 3-5 year buffer to allow schools and states to budget properly and implement all the requirements.

If it was up to me, I would mandate the shot clock for postseason play, because that is where the stalling strategy is most likely to rear it's ugly head (early rounds can have one team coming in who is over matched relative to the other). In many cases, postseason games (especially in later rounds), are played at neutral sites that already have functioning shot clock equipment. For early rounds, I would have nearby sites with shot clock capabilities host the games, in the event that neither competing schools have shot clocks, or bring in portable shot clock units (those can be had as cheaply as $279). In this way, the games that matter in the postseason would have a shot clock, and states would be able to decide whether shot clocks should be adopted in the regular season as well. If enough schools acquire shot clocks on their own, for the postseason or as part of a routine scoreboard upgrade, there is no reason for shot clocks not to be implemented for the regular season. This is exactly what DC charter schools are doing (public and private schools already have permanent or portable shot clock units).