It’s the most often-discussed potential rule change in high school basketball, and it’s a no-brainer.

Proponents of the rule to add a shot clock — limiting the allotted time a team has before attempting to score — illustrate their point by lambasting stall-ball: teams holding the ball as seconds and minutes drip by, slowing the game to a standstill. An entertaining, fast-paced brand of basketball that prepares the best high school players for college play demands a shot clock, obviously, they say.

Detractors are just as sure. There’s no need to prepare for college basketball when 94% of high school players won’t play at the next level. Besides, quality of play is fine as is, they argue, and it isn’t beneficial for offenses to throw up wild attempts at the end of a shot clock. Not to mention the cost of shot clock installation running no less than $1.5 million, combined, for every school in the Kentucky High School Athletic Association and the difficulty in finding a reliable person to run the apparatus. It shouldn’t even be a question.

In Kentucky, where basketball is religion and buzzer-beaters are lore, debate over details like a shot clock get heated. Here it matters, perhaps more than other hoops hotbeds. Unlike a game that ends in regulation, positions on the shot clock run into overtime.

In an unscientific Twitter poll of 1,079 participants, 86.7% of pollsters were in favor of a shot clock, reflecting the popular opinion around the state and country.

But that doesn't mean moving to a shot clock is a slam dunk — not even close. Resistance is plentiful, grounded in concerns over expense, fairness and competition.

Kentucky, like most states, follows the rules set by the National Federation of High School State High School Associations, or NFHS, which does not include a shot clock. And while a rule change does not seem imminent, KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett said he expects the shot clock to become a national rule in the next decade. The KHSAA is surveying its member schools on the topic.

The most resounding support for the shot clock occurs after watching a team hold the ball for minutes on end, trying to limit scoring opportunities for its opponent and trotting out a style of play that results in a bizarrely slow and low-scoring game. But Tackett sees that as an occasional issue, not something that’s very common.

“In reality, are you going after a fly with a bazooka?” Tackett said.

Eight states have a shot clock in either boys or girls basketball or both, and a ninth — Wisconsin — voted to implement a 35-second shot clock in 2017 before rescinding the decision. Georgia, Iowa and Texas have also experimented with a shot clock over the past couple of years.

Indiana High School Athletic Association Commissioner Bobby Cox said that, while it’s discussed in Indiana, it’s not paramount.

“I think the shot clock is a solution in search of a problem,” he said.

Many would argue you don't have to look far to find that problem.

The 1.5 million-dollar question

If a shot clock were to come to Kentucky, it would likely be as an unfunded mandate, meaning it would be incumbent on schools to foot the bill for clock installation. Daktronics is one of the nation’s leading distributors of scoreboards and shot clocks, and a spokesperson said that each shot clock typically costs $2,000 to $2,500, and with installation, the total cost can range from $5,000 to $10,000.

Nearly 300 high schools in Kentucky play basketball; if each had to pay $5,000 for a shot clock, that’d be a minimum of $1.5 million.

Those figures are assuming a gym’s scoreboard is modern enough to be compatible with a shot clock. If the scoreboard is more than 15 years old, schools may need to install a new one, which could range from $15,000, all the way up to six figures. So, there’s significant cost involved.

South Dakota recently added a 35-second shot clock and, starting with the 2017-18 season, all schools in the state play with one. Daniel Swartos, the state's athletic association executive director, said that there wasn’t too much debate around how it would affect gameplay.

“The biggest conversation was around the cost,” he said.

That was also at the forefront in Wisconsin, which voted to implement a shot clock in 2017, before the decision was reversed. Part of the rationale for the change, per a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association spokesperson, was the realization that the shot clock had less support than initially perceived. But even larger was the issue of cost.

Tackett, however, doesn’t see that as a deal breaker in Kentucky.

“The people that didn’t want it always pointed to one thing: cost. Cost isn’t an issue,” Tackett said.

Although Waggener High School athletic director Jamie Dumstorf said he’s never excited to spend significant money, his department would figure out a way to pay for the shot clock, should it be mandated.

“If you know it’s coming, you can make allowance for it,” he said.

Tackett pointed to something other than cost that coaches almost universally bring up.

“The biggest issue is finding people to operate,” Tackett said.

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In addition to finding reliable workers to run the scoreboard, keep the stat book and handle public address duties, schools would need an additional person, who may or may not need to be paid, to operate the shot clock for boys and girls varsity games and, likely, junior varsity and freshman games. For some schools, that could be a struggle.

Scott Chalk, the executive director of Kentucky High School Basketball Coaches, calls finding a reliable worker “one of the biggest issues.” He coaches Lexington’s Paul Laurence Dunbar, among the largest schools in the state, and even he has trouble finding an announcer for each game.

“Quite frankly, in high school basketball right now, it’s hard to find the people you have to have right now to cover the table at a lot of schools,” he said. “It can be tough even for the varsity games at some of our schools.”

Eastern boys basketball coach David Henley expressed a similar concern.

“Now you’re talking about finding somebody else to run shot clock?” he said. “That’s gonna be one problem that some schools are gonna have.”

'Like watching paint dry'

California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington, though, have all made it work. Each of those states has a shot clock in girls or boys basketball or both.

And so proponents of the rule change say that, although it might be logistically inconvenient, it’s worth it. The question was hardly posed to David Tapley, director of Kentucky Premier, a girls club basketball team that competes on the highly competitive Nike EYBL circuit, before he answered.

“Absolutely,” he said of a shot clock coming to high school basketball. “It speeds the game up. It moves the game along. It forces kids to move without the ball.”

EYBL games feature a 24-second shot clock, which he says encourages good offense and purposeful ball movement. Men's and women's college basketball use a 30-second shot clock, while the NBA and WNBA have a 24-second shot clock.

Tapley sees the cost factor as merely an excuse for people who want to maintain the status quo.

“Without a shot clock, we go watch high school (games), and it is like watching paint dry,” he said.

He argued that a shot clock rewards fundamental defense and scoffed at the idea that it might make possessions too hurried.

“Shot clocks will force your players to be more skilled,” he said.

Louisville men’s basketball coach Chris Mack is a proponent of a high school shot clock, too.

“I think it’s necessary,” he said. “I just think that, for those kids who want to play at the next level in college, they’re gonna get experience, and understand how to play in that situation, and then you go to some high school games and teams hold the ball for two or three minutes. I understand why it hasn’t, but I think it’s time.”

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Mercer County boys coach Josh Hamlin is adamant that a shot clock would enhance gameplay, promote on-court decision-making from players and prepare individuals for the college game.

“I think it would improve the overall skill development of players,” said Hamlin. “I think it would make the strategy that goes into coaching more interesting, and really push us to break away from some of the same things we’ve done in the past. Maybe it’s because I’m in the younger generation of coaches, I just think it would be a real step up for our game.”

A threat to high-quality basketball

There's an army of coaches who don't see it that way.

Ball-hogs, showboats and brow-raising shot selection could come to define a game in which seconds tick away on each possession.

If Chalk had his druthers, there wouldn’t even be a shot clock at the college level, and he certainly doesn’t think it has a place at the developmental level of high school.

“There’s nothing that teaches you how to play about, 'Oh my gosh, it’s 3-2-1, let’s throw up a last-second shot,'" he said.

Eastern’s Henley said he often sees college teams forced to take difficult, bad shots late in the shot clock, and he projects a similar issue would happen at the high school level. He also pointed out how it would affect strategies by certain teams. It’s not uncommon for a team, outmatched in talent by an opponent, to slow the game, limit possessions and seek the best shot attempts possible.

In short, there are fewer of those lopsided affairs that frustrate coaches, humiliate players and anger parents.

“I just think that a shot clock would negate some of the things that coaches do to close the talent gap,” Henley said.

Then there’s this question, posed by the NFHS director of sports and officials, Theresia Wynns: “If this is so good, why aren’t more states using it?”

Change could be coming, but not today

Detractors of the shot clock in Kentucky need not fret: Traditional high school basketball does not appear to be in jeopardy. The KHSAA will not adopt a shot clock unless schools in the state display overwhelming support for one or if the NFHS rules change.

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The states that have a shot clock do not follow the NFHS rules, which means that they lose a spot at the table when discussing future rule changes. That’s something Tackett, who is on the rules committee, would like to avoid; by and large, the KHSAA will not go against the federation’s rules.

“For us, it would take either a change on the national level or a strong demonstrated opinion by our member schools,” Tackett said, noting that generally administrators and coaches are pretty split on the issue.

The IHSAA is in a similar boat. Cox, the commissioner, doesn’t consider it a pressing issue, but the state would comply if the NFHS were to mandate it.

Tackett does predict that the rule change will come at the national level, not immediately, but down the road.

“I think there will be a national rule in 10 years,” he said. “It just seems to be the next step.”

The NFHS committee will meet in April to discuss rule changes to high school basketball, and the shot clock may be discussed. There have been shot clock proposals in 2019 and 2017, but it was voted against each time.

If it comes up again, the 11-person rules committee needs a two-vote majority to pass. It would then proceed to the Rules Review Committee and finally the board of directors, before it could ultimately become an official rule change.

Wynns said the shot clock is probably the most commonly proposed rule change to high school basketball, but it's not easy to predict how realistic it is.

“It’s hard to tell,” she said. “From a personal standpoint, and I don’t have a vote on the committee, I think most states believe that their game is good and they like what they’re doing at this particular point.”

Both sides: It's a no-brainer

Every point made by one side has some sort of response from the other.

Some say the shot clock will prepare players better for college. “Why are we trying to imitate what the 6% are gonna do?” Tackett asks.

Some argue that, not only is it difficult to find someone willing to operate a shot clock at every game, it is tricky to run it consistently with no room for error. “This isn’t hard,” Tapley counters. “It’s very easy.”

Some claim the shot clock will rush possessions and result in lower quality play. Hamlin disagrees: “I think it would really improve the overall quality of our basketball.”

The debate about a shot clock is a no-brainer — just ask anyone with an opinion on either side. However, there are some, a rare few, who aren’t impassioned by it.

“I’m kind of torn,” Southern boys coach Shedrick Jones said. “I could see both sides of it.”

Sacred Heart girls coach Donna Moir laughed when discussing the issue and how unopinionated she is on the matter. She outlined each side of the argument and then shrugged.

“If that’s what they said we were gonna (do),” she said, “we would coach our kids to adjust to however they need to play.”

Shot clock facts

States with a high school shot clock: California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington

Hayes Gardner can be reached at hgardner@gannett.com; Twitter: @HayesGardner; Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.