On Tuesday night, the Colorado High School Activities Association Legislative Council voted against instituting a shot clock for high school basketball.
The amendments to institute the 35-second shot clock failed. The first amendment for the shot clock failed with only 28 votes for it and 43 votes against it. The second amendment was for a varsity-only shot clock, and it failed with only 22 votes for it and 47 against it. For any amendment to pass, a two-thirds majority approval is needed.
On the role call after the electronic vote was tallied, it was apparent most of the bigger schools approved it while the smaller schools opposed it. Smaller schools opposed it because of things like associated maintenance costs.
It was one of the few items that was voted on that did not pass. Out of 33 items, only five did not pass and two of which had to do with the shot clock.
The Durango Herald spoke with a few La Plata County coaches about the decision. Here’s what they said:
Durango girls basketball coach Lauren Moran
“I am a little bit surprised with the outcome knowing that numerous other states have made a different decision and that they have already adopted the shot clock,” she said. “To me, it seems like that was the direction that high school basketball was going to be trending.
“I'm not disappointed about it. I thought it would have been an interesting challenge if they had introduced it. But, I understand that there's going to be challenges as far as implementing it both with somebody to run the clock and then also changing the scoreboards and all that stuff. So I totally get their reasoning and I love high school basketball as it is. I'm not going to be upset if it stays the same.”
Durango boys basketball coach Alan Batiste
“I'm kind of surprised that they wouldn't do it, being that this is just where the game is going. Like I said, the game is moving fast already. But at the same time I get it, it's always hard to try something new because you don't know what might happen,” he said. “But I thought they would for sure do it. But I also understand the dynamics of schools in Colorado, especially the rural area.
“Even on the western slope, there's a lot of schools that aren’t going to have the budget to be able to do that. I don't know how they were going to run the clock.”
Batiste suggested trying out the shot clock at the Class 6A level because those schools would be able to fund it and the 6A schools predominantly comes from around the Denver area.
Bayfield boys basketball coach Damon White Thunder
“I'm pretty surprised about it,” he said. “But there's a lot of smaller schools in the state. So I think that's kind of why it kind of happened. It kind of would be a big change for them. It wouldn't really matter to us.”
White Thunder said he wasn’t surprised that the associated cost would be an issue for the small schools.
The shot clock issue is expected to be voted on again at the CHSAA’s next Legislative Council meeting in April.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
