Illinois association believes NFHS will add shot clock for basketball

The National Federation of State High School Associations’ (NFHS) Basketball Rules Committee was scheduled to meet last week to discuss potential changes. Though the committee has not yet made any announcements, IHSA associate executive director Kurt Gibson told the Belleville-News Democrat that there could be changes on the horizon.

“If I was a betting guy, I would expect the shot clock to come out of that committee, to be approved for ’18-’19,” said Gibson, who indicated the rule might not begin in Illinois until 2019-20 to allow time for schools to purchase and install the shot clocks and train people how to use them.

“It might make a little more sense to wait for ’19-’20,” he said. “We would be rushing ourselves to make it happen for next (season).”

Adding a shot clock to high school basketball has previously come before the rules committee, but the measure failed. However, support for it is building and our own polls have shown that roughly two-third of high school basketball coaches believe the game should adopt a shot clock.

Eight states currently use a shot clock for high school basketball. Wisconsin was set to become the ninth, but the state association reversed an earlier decision to adopt it after athletic directors and coaches across the state objected.

An official announcement from the NFHS could come sometime in late April or May.

Click here to read more from the Belleville News-Democrat.

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