To say it was a wild night in the basketball world involving teams from Oklahoma would be an understatement. The Oklahoma City Thunder were witnesses to history as Lebron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabar on the NBA all-time scoring list (still won the game though 133-130). The #16 ranked Oklahoma Sooner Women’s Basketball team came back from down 12 with just over 5 minutes to go to force OT and eventually beat Baylor on the road 98-92. And then you had the lowest scoring game in OSSAA basketball history…
Last night in Weatherford, Oklahoma, the homecoming crowd was treated to what might be the worst game in Oklahoma high school basketball history as the Weatherford boys beat Anadarko by the final score of 4-2! No…that is not a typo. 4-2 was the score. Now the night wasn’t all that bad as the girls game was very competitive and ended with a 39-32 final score so at least the fans got to see some sort of offense being played. But obviously, it’s the boys game that is getting all the headlines and has got Oklahoma sports fans saying one thing, “Oklahoma needs a shot clock in high school basketball.”
The game has even started getting national attention with Yahoo posting a story about the game and also talking about the need for a shot clock in every state in high school basketball. Now obviously, each state has their own governing bodies that make the rules for their high school sports so some sort of national mandate is just not possible. Oklahoma did come close to getting a shot clock though. Just a few weeks ago, the OSSAA voted on whether or not to implement a 35 second shot clock. Had that passed, Oklahoma would have become the 9th state in the US to have a full-time shot clock. However, the vote ended in a 7-7 tie and the OSSAA president voted no and that was all she wrote.
I tend to agree with the folks out there who are calling for a shot clock in high school basketball for two reasons:
- It would make the games significantly better. I’ve only been in Oklahoma since August. In my short time of covering high school basketball, I’ve already seen my fair share of examples where even I was calling for a shot clock. One actually happened last Friday night! I was in Kingfisher covering their game against Weatherford (ironically enough) and Kingfisher tried the stall technique to protect their 12 point 2nd half lead. There were minute and a half to 2 minute stretches where Kingfisher (the #1 team in the state for crying out loud) would throw the ball back and forth near the mid court line without taking a single shot. It took them out of rhythm offensively so when Weatherford eventually cut into the lead, Kingfisher was so out of sort offensively that they couldn’t get their mojo back and they would eventually lose the game in overtime. If there was a shot clock, Kingfisher would’ve been forced to run their offense throughout the 2nd half and with how good they were playing throughout the 1st half…Kingfisher might have ran away with that game. Even if they didn’t run away with the game, they still would have had a flow going so when they needed a bucket to stop a run or tie the game in OT…maybe it would have came a little easier for them then it did. That’s just one example but overall, games would be a lot better because both teams would be forced to run plays on offense throughout the entire game. This could even potentially lead to higher scoring games so the likelihood of seeing a 35-32 high school game would be very slim.
- Every other form of basketball has a shot clock. Junior college…every division of NCAA basketball…NBA…everything. I realize that not every kid who plays high school basketball is going to play at the next level. That being said, if you have a kid on your team that has even a chance to make it at the next level, wouldn’t you want them to be accustomed to running an offense in the confides of the shot clock? That way their freshman season isn’t spent trying to figure out how to run an offense in 30 seconds or less and can instead be focused on actually getting better at their craft.
If your curious to see how that game played out…somebody sped up the game and posted it to Tik-Tok and I’ve posted that video below. I’m not gonna hold my breath on the OSSAA implementing a shot clock anytime soon…but last night’s game in Weatherford is the latest example of it needing to happen sooner rather than later.
Somebody posted video of the 1st quarter of that 4-2 game and I stand in awe pic.twitter.com/VQJgGe19uG
— Bunkie Perkins (@BunkiePerkins) February 8, 2023
