‘It’s where basketball is now.’ Coaches sound off on new KHSAA shot clock ruling
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- KHSAA mandates 35-second shot clock for varsity basketball by 2027–28 season
- Coaches largely support ruling, citing alignment with collegiate, AAU standards
- Schools face financial burden with $5,500 cost and added staffing for compliance
Social media reacted with a mix of praise and consternation Wednesday as news broke that Kentucky high school basketball would begin using a shot clock during the 2027-28 season and join a growing nationwide trend.
On Thursday at the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s annual meeting of its member schools, the directors of the KHSAA’s Board of Control got to face many of the administrators their 13-5 vote the day before had put on the spot with a move that surprised many.
KHSAA board president Greg Howard of Warren County Schools, who voted in favor, said he’s “not heard near as much” criticism as he thought he would and said that he’s heard more of it from officials.
“Any time you make change, (criticism) is out there,” Howard said. “We went through the same thing with the 3-point line and play clocks in football. … I’m an old man, so I’m slow to change, but I think it’s much needed. A lot of our kids play travel ball and AAU, and they use the shot clock. I think by giving everybody two years to be able to incorporate that costs are going to come down. I know people are worried about things, but I think that will go away.”
Sacred Heart athletic director and five-time defending state champion girls basketball coach Donna Moir, another KHSAA board member who voted for the shot clock, said she’d only heard positive feedback on the matter at Thursday’s gathering, which included representatives form at least 227 schools.
“Everybody I talked to, they were in favor,” Moir said. “Everything was positive. Two or three people told me they wish it was coming sooner … I think the board members understood the importance of high school basketball in Kentucky and did the right thing.”
Bardstown boys coach James “Boo” Brewer spoke similarly about the result of the vote, calling it “a good thing for Kentucky basketball.”
“Why in three seasons? Brewer asked. “Let’s start it now. We have these athletes that are preparing for the next level that need to get used to playing with a shot clock and not just in AAU basketball, but in high school as well.”
As Brewer mentioned, shot clocks are typical at other competitive levels of the sport — of course, at the professional and collegiate levels, but in travel programs and many tournaments as well, both within and outside of the confines of the state.
“I’m excited about it for several reasons,” said George Rogers Clark girls coach Robbie Graham. “A lot of kids in Kentucky want to play at the next level, whether it be Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA or junior college, and I think it just kind of gets kids used to that. And a lot of the kids are already used to it playing AAU ball, so I don’t think it’ll be a huge adjustment for people. And our program, we play fast anyway, so it’s definitely not going to be an adjustment for us.”
Lexington Catholic has had shot clocks in its gym since at least 2000 for special events and could use them for its annual holiday tournament if it chose to do so. The current ones might need to be repaired or replaced, LexCath boys coach Brandon Salsman acknowledged.
“I’m in favor of it,” Salsman said. “Whether people want to do it or not, it’s where basketball is now. I’ve been in a lot of tournaments that have had a shot clock, and it has very rarely affected the game.”
Steve Page, who coached Great Crossing to last season’s Boys Sweet 16 state championship, has advocated for the KHSAA’s adoption of the shot clock “since it was brought up nationally,” he said, and pushed for the school, which already has shot clocks in its gym, to vote accordingly.
Page noted that the implementation of the shock clock will change end-of-period and end-of-game strategy and won’t require trailing defenses to extend as much in an effort to speed up the game.
Great Crossing’s 2024 state semifinals loss to Lyon County was held up as an example of a circumstance where the Warhawks could have benefitted from the shot clock because Lyon County had so many ballhandlers who could dribble out of trouble and run extra time off the clock.
“I’ve heard that over and over and over, but they played by what the rules are,” Page said. “I don’t know that they took more than 35 seconds on most possessions, but we had to come out and extend our defense, and we gave up some holes. But you can’t take anything away from those guys for sure. … It was frustrating that morning, but If you don’t get behind, you don’t have to worry about it.”
Lexington Christian girls basketball coach Tim Bradshaw said that things won’t be “dramatically different,” with a shock clock, but that “overall, for the game itself, it’s a good thing.”
“It doesn’t take us 35 seconds to shoot,” Bradshaw said. “Let’s be honest, kids are ready to shoot anyway. But it’ll change your strategy. At the end of quarters, you’re going to definitely want to be better…at the end of the game, when there’s 10 minutes left and we’re up four, five, six points, with the rules the way they were, I’m holding it. I’m possessing the ball. But now you’ve got to institute some strategy and get your kids ready for those situations.”
The most common concern for coaches centered on the issue of implementation, maintenance and staffing of the required shot clock — and the associated costs.
Graham, Bradshaw and other coaches across the state asked for comment by the Herald-Leader acknowledged the financial burden”the required shot may place on smaller schools or those with fewer resources.
Among them is Rockcastle County, where girls basketball coach Chrysti Noble has led the Rockets since 1990 and coached them to a 2011 state championship.
“You have to buy the new equipment, you’re gonna have to find somebody to run the clock, to learn how to operate the clock,” Noble said. “I just think that’s going to be really hard for some schools, including mine. Rockcastle, we do have 800 students, but we’re a very rural school. And you hear everybody’s budgeted but, you know, everybody’s budgets are tight.”
At the vote, the cost of putting up shot clocks was informally estimated to be about $5,500 per school and perhaps about $3,000 per season to man it with a paid official if schools chose to do so, according to numbers talked about by other board members during their discussions.
“Kids won’t have a lot of problems adjusting to (the shot clock),” Noble said. “The game’s gone to being such a fast-paced game anyway. I don’t think that’ll be a huge adjustment for everybody, but I do think it’ll be a financial adjustment for schools, and it’ll be hard financially.”
Another criticism of Wednesday’s vote centered on it going against the stated wishes of schools polled by the KHSAA in its triennial survey.
But a closer examination of that survey offers some perspective. The 150 schools voting against the shot clock were voting to keep it as an experiment for showcases and midseason tournaments “until the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) adopts a national rule.”
However, the survey also showed that 76 schools voted in favor of adopting the shot clock for all varsity games next season — 21 additional schools favored adopting it the following year, and five others favored its implementation for the 2028-29 season.
Combined, those in favor of a shot clock at some point numbered 102 to the 150 conditionally against it unless it became a national rule.
