Idaho adds a shot clock for high school basketball. When will it start being used?
A shot clock is finally coming to Idaho high school basketball. But when may vary across the state.
Idaho’s high school sports governing body finalized the addition of a 35-second shot clock at its board meeting Wednesday, but the unanimous vote applies only to its state tournaments at the end of the 2023-24 season.
That leaves it up to local schools and leagues to decide when to start using a shot clock for regular-season and district tournament games. Some have hinted at using it as soon as this upcoming winter. But for which games, and at which levels, remains up for local debate.
“We don’t want to be dictating to schools if they have a shot clock or if they should be using them, similar to three-man mechanics (for referees),” said Tim Perrigot, a board member for the Idaho High School Activities Association, during Wednesday’s meeting. “We don’t want to get into the business of telling schools what they have to do, except for state tournaments.”
Treasure Valley schools in the 5A and 4A Southern Idaho Conferences plan to iron out the details for the upcoming season at their August meeting, West Ada Activities Director Jason Warr said.
Those details include: Who will run the clocks? Should they be used for conference or nonconference games, or both? And do freshman and junior varsity teams need a shot clock, or just varsity squads?
“A lot of people are excited about it,” Warr said. “But you also have to keep in mind what will the officials look like? What do our workers look like? It’s a balancing act of implementing it and making it successful, and not overwhelming everyone.”
IDAHO’S PATH TO A SHOT CLOCK
The vote completes a change of heart for the Idaho High School Activities Association, which rejected the shot clock for years. But the ground shifted last spring when the national high school sports governing body stopped punishing states that used a shot clock. It previously barred those states from sitting on its rules committees.
That sparked a change. Only eight states used a shot clock last season. Ten more have plans to add it soon, including Idaho, Utah and Montana.
A pair of statewide surveys showed overwhelming support for adding a shot clock in Idaho. One by the IHSAA found 78% of Idaho’s coaches, referees, athletic directors, principals and superintendents favored adding a shot clock.
A survey by the Idaho Statesman showed that 87% of high school players wanted a shot clock. Many players pointed to late-game strategies coaches use to protect leads, saying they make the sport less fun.
“The games are very boring when a team can waste 2 minutes per possession. That’s not how basketball is meant to be played,” wrote Camden Parry, an incoming sophomore with Owyhee boys basketball.
Boise girls basketball coach Kim Brydges said a shot clock will change her strategies. But those changes are for the better, she believes.
“It’s great for the game,” Brydges said. “It’s great for kids. It rewards good defense.
“I’ve said this for years, but I would coach very differently with a shot clock. I would be pressing more. I would be running a lot more half-court traps and buzz-type of actions. … If you put on a decent press, even if you don’t get a steal, if you can chew up 8 seconds in the backcourt, it makes a big difference.”
IHSAA REJECTS EXPANDED STATE BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
The IHSAA board also voted down a proposal 6-4 on Wednesday to expand the 1A Division I state basketball tournaments. But while debating how teams should qualify for state, several board members said they expect to see more plans for expansion soon.
The Whitepine League in the Lewiston region proposed expanding the state tournament from the traditional eight teams to 11. The five district champs would receive a guaranteed spot in the quarterfinals. The next six highest-ranked teams in the MaxPreps.com rankings would face off in a play-in round the week before the state tournament.
The traditional state tournament would then be reseeded No. 1 through No. 8 based on MaxPreps rankings.
Whitepine League president Kelly Caldwell said the plan was designed to mirror the state football playoffs. He said his survey of the state’s 1A Division I athletic directors showed 79% in favor of the proposal. And when factoring in the current state play-in games, it would add only one extra game and one extra team to the field.
He said calling it an expansion was largely semantic, depending on your point of view.
But the IHSAA board remained hesitant to abandon its traditional state tournament structure, which seeks to guarantee equal representation from regions around the state. A computer rankings model could favor some regions over others. For example, the Whitepine League traditionally outperforms the larger Western Idaho Conference in the Treasure Valley.
“I like the idea of expanding the state tournaments,” IHSAA board member Randy Lords said during Wednesday’s meeting. “Good teams are not getting there. But the logistics are a concern with that much travel. Budgets are starting to tighten up pretty good.
“We’ve only had MaxPreps for one year. We’ve seen some good things in that one year. But I don’t know that we make good decisions on one year of data.”
Idaho began using MaxPreps rankings to seed its state tournaments outside of football last fall. But it used those rankings only to seed teams after they qualified for state. The Whitepine League’s proposal would lead teams to make, or miss, the state tournament based on their MaxPreps ranking.
Idaho has used MaxPreps rankings for its football playoffs for several years, including awarding at-large berths via the rankings.
“In football, we wanted the best teams to be at the tournament,” Caldwell said. “So we had modified that. So if you’re going to do it for football, why aren’t you doing it for something else?”
This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 10:30 AM.
