Shot clock coming to Minnesota high school basketball

Minnesota is the 13th state association to adopt a shot clock. Others include Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, California, District of Columbia, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Washington.

"We are excited it passed," said Pat Barrett of the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association. "The state of basketball is excited to start using it."

Approval is for the varsity level only, but member schools may use a shot clock at sub-varsity levels if both teams agree to it.

The last time the MSHSL visited adopting the shot clock was at its June 2019 Board of Directors meeting. It was there the league voted by a 13-5 margin against it. Two other prior proposals failed as well.

Hutchinson head coaches Tim Ellefson, girls basketball, and Mike McGraw, boys basketball, don’t think shot clocks will have a drastic effect on the game overall. However, they had different views on whether the change has merit. McGraw doesn’t think a shot clock will improve the game, while Ellefson believes it will have a few benefits, especially preventing teams from stalling.

“This was evident two or three years ago when Marshall tried to stall the entire game vs. high-powered Waseca,” Ellefson said. “This is not how the game is meant to be played. If we had penalty flags, we would call it unsportsmanlike conduct.”

Ellefson said shot clocks will also create more possessions for each team, encourage teams to develop greater skills, and change teams’ strategies at the end of games. In turn, all of that may lead to a greater fan base, he believes.

“High school players love to play in front of fans. Fans want to see fast-pace offense, and speeding up the game will make the players and fans more engaged in the game,” he said. “I don’t think people want to come watch someone hold the ball for minutes at a time.”

MSHSL Board President Tom Jerome of Roseau said about 75% of schools are in favor of the shot clock, while a report done by the MNBCA showed that 82.7% of coaches in the state were in favor of a shot clock.

In the Wright County Conference, Hutchinson Activities Director Bill Tschida said reactions to the change have been mixed.

“I thought the game was fine as it was,” he said. “But the coaches were in favor of it, so that is why it happened.”

A 35-second shot clock has been used in some Minnesota holiday tournaments over the years. The MSHSL allows the use of it in the regular season, but the following guidelines must be met:

• The facility at which the game is played has the necessary equipment to allow the use of the clock.
• Both participating teams agree to use the clock.
• Teams and officials are notified at least one week prior to the game. If one of the teams does not consent to the use of the clock, it may not be used.
• Coaches and officials must file a report with the MSHSL office after any game in which a shot clock is used, so that the results can be tracked.

This past May, the National Federation of State High School Associations approved a 35-second shot clock for high school basketball for the 2022-23 season.

In a statement released by the NFHS, the use of a shot clock was not a mandate. Instead, each of its member states would determine if they wanted to implement it. But if a state chooses to, it is required to follow NFHS rules that include "displaying two timepieces that are connected to a horn that is distinctive from the game-clock horn."

Rules also stipulate there needs to be a stopwatch at the scorer's table in case the shot clock malfunctions.

In the past, two reasons the MSHSL did not adopt a shot clock were potential financial and logistical challenges for some school districts. Some districts are already equipped to add a shot clock, but many are not.

Tom Critchley, executive director of the Minnesota Basketball Coaches Association, told the MSHSL board that the cost of shot clocks to schools that need them was estimated at about $3,700.

In Hutchinson, Tschida said the scoreboards at Hutchinson High School gymnasium can be adapted to add shot clocks, but he had some concerns about the costs created by the change, as well as other challenges.

“The cost will be an issue both with the installation of the clocks themselves and then the hiring of the additional table worker to run the shot clock,” he said. “You will also need to have people trained to operate the shot clock. They will need to know when to and when not to restart the clock, for example.”