AHSAA UPDATE: Local coaches approve addition of shot clock to basketball

Montgomery Academy basketball coach Jeremy Arant likes the idea of adding a shot clock to high school basketball. (File Photo)

By TIM GAYLE

The Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Central Board voted on Wednesday to implement a shot clock in basketball beginning next season, a decision that has support among the state’s coaches.

“There were surveys that came out and in those surveys, I voted for it,” said Montgomery Academy coach Jeremy Arant. “I think it’s better for our style of play that it’s there. Ultimately, it’s good for our team.” 

The National Federation of State High School Associations’ basketball rules committee recommended individual state associations implement the use of a shot clock in 2021 and currently 30 states now have rules that utilize a shot clock in every high school game.

“I think it’s about time and I think it’s going to progress the game of basketball,” said St. James girls basketball coach Katie Barton. “I think when we don’t have it, it holds back the progression of the game of basketball. I’m happy the AHSAA moved forward with it.”

AHSAA executive director Heath Harmon agreed with the Central Board’s decision, which came a year after the board approved the experimental use of the 35-second shot clock in regular season non-area games in 2024-25, provided both teams agree.

A year later, the rule will now apply to all games in all classifications.

“This is  something we have been studying a good while, and our basketball coaches’ leadership has been at the forefront of this decision,” Harmon said. “We think this is the right time. We felt it needed to be added at the beginning of a classification period and not in the middle.”

Arant played a slower pace in certain postseason games on the way to both the 2025 and 2026 Class 3A state championship and admits Montgomery Academy teams earlier in his coaching career might not have appreciated a 35-second clock.

“It’s not going to have a huge impact on the way that we play the game,” Arant said. “Obviously, it’s going to take some of that stall game out of the high school game. We kind of slowed the game down when we got a lead at one point last year, so that’s going to eliminate that but I do think it makes for interesting strategy on how you’re going to defend people and then how you’re going to attack people’s different defenses they try.”

Both Barton and Arant encountered shot clock games last year in north Alabama and other states and said it didn’t affect their team’s style of play.

“I think it’s a skill to play ‘keep away’ but that’s not the point of basketball,” Barton said. “Basketball is going and trying to put the ball in the bucket and trying to stop the other team from putting it in the bucket. When you have a shot clock, you have to make sure your team has a certain skill set. I think it progresses the game offensively, it progresses the game from a coaching standpoint.

“I’ve coached with it and I’ve coached without it. It didn’t really affect us that much. It didn’t bother our kids.”

Arant said the biggest challenge is preparing his team to face changing defenses in shot clock games 

“We played some shot clock games the last couple of years and it didn’t affect the way we played,” he said. “The biggest thing we’ve seen over the last couple of years -- and you’ve seen this with the people who play with a shot clock regularly -- is they will change their defenses mid-possession. Maybe for the first few seconds, they’ll give you a little three-quarter court press, then they’ll play you man for 10 seconds and flip to zone, or vice versa, as the shot clock winds down to keep the offense off balance. It could be something we try; it’ll definitely be something that we’ll see.”

In addition to the cost of adding shot clocks in every high school gym next season, the schools will face the added $40 cost of a shot clock operator. 

“We’ll have to get shot clocks installed,” Barton said. “I’m sure there will be a lot of schools in Alabama that will have to do that. Guess what? It costs more money when we went from a two-man officiating crew to a three-man, but we did it because it was better for the game.”