On (or off) the clock

 Here's a brief video clip for you, on this well-chilled Tuesday morning. It's supposedly from a high school basketball game in Ohio. What do you notice about it?

Yes, the kid with the basketball is kneeling near center court, dribbling, dribbling, dribbling. Apparently he did this for 2 1/2 minutes, according to the folks who posted the video.

What else do you notice?

How about that there isn't a defender within 10 feet of him?

The only opposing player in the clip, in fact, is standing stock still with his hands on his hips. Apparently this is what his coach wanted him to do, for some unfathomable reason. So who's at fault for letting this happen, really?

I say it's that coach, and listen, I'm no basketball genius. But it seems to me if you don't want an opponent to stall, don't let them. 

Pressure the basketball. Force the ballhandler to go where he doesn't want to go. You know, all those defense-y type things.

What whoever posted this sees is Example A for why high school hoops needs a shot clock. What I see, mostly, is a coach who's afraid to play man D.

This does not mean I'm utterly opposed to a shot clock in high school hoops. It's a current hot topic here in Indiana, where Kyle Neddenriep of the Indianapolis Star recently addressed it, citing a survey that showed a healthy number of coaches -- most of them from larger schools -- would be in favor of a shot clock.

I get that. Believe me I do.

See, I covered one of those stall-ball games once. It was a sectional game here in the Fort. The final score was 16-14, and it happened more organically than usual, in the sense it didn't look planned.

Instead, the pace of play seemed to slow down in, well, slow-motion. Eventually it came to a full stop, both teams holding the ball for increasing lengths of time. It was like the Stall-Ball Vortex was gradually sucking them in.

What I hated about that is there wasn't much play-by-play to fill out my game story. What I loved about it is it was the quickest high school game I ever covered. I believe it was over in hour, including the halftime break.

 A shot clock would have considerably lengthened the game. It also would have considerably lifted the entertainment level, which in this case was somewhere around Watching Snails Mate.

 So, I get the shot clock argument. The only viable objections against it are the cost (particularly for smaller schools), and the extremely rare occasions when a shot clock would even factor into the proceedings.

I'm not going to say "never." But in almost 40 years of covering high school basketball, I got that one lone stall-ball game. If that's not never, it lives next door to it.

But, sure, bring on the shot clock. I don't see the harm in it.

Unless you're scared to play man D, that is.