Dr. Dish Basketball Blog

Does High School Basketball NEED a Shot Clock?

Written by Nick Bartlett | Jun 9, 2019 4:38:37 PM

A shot clock allows for a more effective overall flow to the game! Flow is what keeps players out of foul trouble and teams make better offensive and defensive decisions! The margin of error is smaller which challenges players to rise to the occasion and work on their craft!

β€” β€’SLGβ€’ (@shelb_luann40) January 27, 2019

This has been a question we've seen debated many time in the past few years...

Does high school basketball NEED a shot clock to improve the quality of the game?

We decided to take this discussion to Twitter and received over 5,000 votes and a ton of comments:

In Favor of Shot Clock

As you can see, the overwhelming favorite was "YES" high school basketball needs a shot clock. Here are a few of the reasons why...

Here's a great article from our friend, Coach Mac from Basketball for Coaches in favor of a shot clock.

Not in Favor of Shot Clock

While the vast majority believes a shot clock is necessary and most beneficial, there were a handful of really good points on why a shot clock isn't necessarily needed.

While technically Tyler is in favor of the shot clock, he brings up a good point:

Our Take

This is definitely an intriguing topic. I talked to many of our employees who are mostly former high school/college athletes in the office and they definitely agreed that having a shot clock would be nice but NOT necessarily necessary (is that a term)?

For me, it's interesting because I graduated from high school in 2008 and don't remember ever talking about how we needed a shot clock. There was one time in a summer league game where my team did stall for a few minutes to make a point (the team we were playing was sitting in 2-3 zone in a summer league game...that's a whole other conversation), but otherwise I don't believe there was an actual high school game where we felt there NEEDED to be a shot clock.

However, with the rise of social media and extreme cases of stalling it's become a very hot topic. As of writing this, I believe there are 9 out 50 states that have a shot clock in high school. I imagine it's only a matter of time before all 50 have a shot clock at this point.

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!

Regardless of which way you lean, it's a fact that you need good shooters to become a great team! 

Click here for more info on Dr. Dish basketball shooting machines.

For more drills and workouts using Dr. Dish, click here: https://www.drdishbasketball.com/resources

Follow us on social media for daily basketball drills, tips, and inspiration!

https://www.facebook.com/drdishbball

https://www.twitter.com/drdishbball

https://www.instagram.com/drdishbball/