In the 20 or so schools I worked in this season I would trust maybe 2 to be able to handle a shot clock.

Been playing halves here in MN since the 05-06 season. I think ND only plays halves for Class A(big schools) while Class B still plays 8:00 quarters(although I may be wrong).

How many large schools can North Dakota have, 10 or 11?

Depends how you define large, too.

Having lived in Grand Forks as a child, and Minot as an adult, I know there cannot be many LARGE schools in the state. However, I know at one time North Dakota had the most millionaires per capita, so maybe they kicked in some funds.

I've always considered the HS I attended in the Chicago area as a "large" school. We had over 4000 students. There were 712 in my graduating class and I was the youngest of the 712. We're having our classes' 50th reunion this summer.

We can disagree. I think some hassle is worth thousands of extra posessions for thousands of kids.

Cost can be less then 1 set of jerseys.

While competent operators is a problem . . . see my argument re: hassle.

I work games in Maine with no shot clock. I work games in Canada with a 24 second shot clock. More kids play, more kids make decisions, more kids shoot, teams have to be deeper. Seems better for basketball.

Many more stoppages. Volunteers at most tables so anywhere between 1 or 2 and 10+ corrections a night depending on the quality of the crew. Because of timing differences (10 min quarters, 2 minutes between, etc) different bonus rules. Games just take longer anyways. Tough to get a FIBA game done in under 100 minutes. A lot are closer to 120. As an officials its a lot less pay for more work.

As a parent and basketball fan I like it a lot better.

Speaking of which, the state's fanboy site is in the midst of a seven-page thread after last weekend's stall ball game between Portland and South Portland, which was 13-13 after the fourth quarter, and a 20-16 SoPo victory. The thread is simply entitled, "SHOT CLOCK IN MAINE....NOW!!!!"

It's not going to happen. The NFHS doesn't like a shot clock, and I know our commission is against it, too. I'm with Adam about it being a solution looking for a problem, particularly where Panther cites 1-10 corrections per game. We don't need that; we have enough to do.

Not sure what the enrollment cutoff is but 21 schools play Class A basketball. To get an 8 team state tourney they have an east regional and a west regional tournament where the top 4 finishers qualify for the state tournament.

I see this problem mostly in the playoff games and most of those games are held at colleges so they would have a shot clock. I think if the shot clock is there, use it, but don't make those rural schools with barely enough players for a team but one.

You can't force a team to play with a shot clock in February and March if they haven't used one all season.

Again, just a rare issue that doesn't really need to be solved.

By rule couldn't the coaches have asked to shorten the quarters to 30 seconds each if they decided to do this? If you were the referee would you have to have a legitimate reason not to agree to shorten the quarters? Or am I taking this out of context?


ART. 3 . . . A quarter(s) may be shortened in an emergency or at any time by mutual agreement of the opposing coaches and referee. Playing time and number of quarters for nonvarsity game quarters may be reduced by mutual agreement of opposing coaches.

I'd be in favor of a 4 second game, providing one of the teams could hit a shot within those 4 seconds.

Yes, the coaches (and R in a varsity game) could have agreed to shorten the quarters.