Proponents of a shot clock in Kentucky high school basketball seem to be growing — but the KHSAA is passing on implementing the shot clock in the Bluegrass State at this time.
The National Federation of State High School Associations recently put rule changes in place permitting states to adopt a 35-second shot clock on a state-by-state basis beginning with the 2022-23 season.
However, the KHSAA found through a survey that membership does not favor the adoption by any form of plurality or majority at this time. The survey was conducted using the Board of Control election system in order to restrict each school to one vote and not to collect individual school responses.
KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett said only between 42 and 45-percent of the state’s coaches want the shot clock at the high school level.
“When the NFHS made its rule change, the Rules Committee contemplated this exact scenario,” said Tackett. “Any consideration of the shot clock should be reviewed by its member schools in each state association and allow those states to decide which route to take on this rule.
“This is certainly not the end of shot clock discussion, but at least for 2022-23, the Board agreed the support simply was not there.”
Tackett also said getting reliable clock operators for the games is more of a concern than the cost.
“We will continue to communicate and gather data from our schools in future years and make decisions based on that data,” Tackett said.
So far, at least 10 states either require a shot clock in high school competition or will begin using one starting in 2022-2023 — California, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington.
According to the most recent NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey, a total of 540,769 boys participated in basketball in 18,617 schools, and 399,067 girls participated in the sport in 18,210 schools across the country. It is the third-most-popular sport for boys and girls.
