NEW ULM — For local high school basketball coaches, the coming 35-second shot clock beginning in the 2023-24 season for both boys’ and girls’ basketball has more coaches in favor of it than against it.

Four local high school basketball coaches were polled about their feelings on the shot clock that will begin next season.

Jeff VanHee, the head boys’ basketball coach at Madelia High School, said that he wishes that the 35-second shot clock was up and running this season.

“I am super excited and I feel it is long overdue in my opinion,” he said. “The game has changed and it is evolving. The part that I am really intrigued by is that it makes it more like basketball that people are used to watching like college and professional. In Europe, they use the shot clock all the way down to the youth levels and their shot clock is even closer to the NBA’s 24-second [shot clock].”

VanHee said that is also has its advantages defensively.

“One of the advantages to me is that it gets kids engaged to play high pressure defense,” VanHee said. “I have talked to people in North Dakota and they said that (the shot clock) makes you a better defensive team and player because there is a specified amount of time that you have to play defense. So I can convince high school kids that for 35 seconds, you are going to have to play real good defense and then it will be our ball.”

One of the arguments that has merit is that is there really is no need for a shot clock in high school basketball because of the fast-paced game that is already played.

VanHee said that it is probably true “but having it there gives defenders a reference point to clamp down a little longer and we will get the ball back. No one wants to see a team sit and hold the ball.”

When asked if VanHee has coached against a team that has slowed down the pace of the game and held onto the ball, he said no one has in a consistent manner.

“They may have held on to the ball for a last shot at the half.”

VanHee said that Madelia has played with a shot clock for the last eight years at Mankato Bethany for non-conference games.

“We have had one (shot clock) violation a game, but no more than three.”

And VanHee thinks that if a shot clock makes poor shooting teams even worse he said, “then they probably need to get better. And we had a coaches survey from the Minnesota Basketball Coaches Association and 85% of coaches surveyed were in favor.”

New Ulm High School girls’ basketball coach Julie Rogers said that she is pretty happy about the shot clock.

“I think that it will prepare our athletes for post-high school play,” she said. “We have more and more girls going on to play college basketball. And it adds a strategic layer that these athletes are ready for. As their basketball IQ becomes more and more advanced, they are ready for that extra layer. It increases the speed of the game — it will increase the number of possessions so you get more scoring opportunities. And it eliminates the team that goes into that stall.”

Rogers said that the shot clock was something that she was accustomed to before coaching the Eagles.

“I coached overseas for the last 25 years and we had a shot clock — it was a high school team and we were playing Department of Defense and International schools,” she said. “So I am used to it. When I came back here, I found myself looking around for how many seconds we have left on the shot clock. There is still enough time to still develop a play — it will not just be run-and-gun. You still need people to set up an offense and work for a good shot.

“It will increase the speed a little bit,” she added. “There were seven high school games here [last] Saturday, and if you timed it, there were very few possessions where the shot clock would have gone off. I think that the players will love the shot clock.”

Minnesota Valley Lutheran head boys’ basketball coach Craig Morgan said that the shot clock was not needed.

“Once every three or four years, somebody decides they are going to stall and they stand out there,” he said. “But then the bonus should also be on the defense to get out there and play some defense rather than just sitting back. For the very few times that it has been used and even in conversations with other Athletic Directors or basketball coaches, the majority of people think it is not necessary but they know it is going to happen.

“This was more of a push towards the college game,” he added. “Here in Minnesota we went to halves (from quarters) and that was the push towards the next level game.”

And as an athletic director at MVL also, Morgan knows there will be added expenses now.

“You are going to have to pay for the shot clock and then find an operator for it,” he said. “The one thing the small schools are going to have besides the expense of the shot clock and the worker to run it — they may say you need to have a three referees with one to watch the shot clock. They are not going to want to do two referees on a game. So you are going to a three-man crew when we are already short referees.”

Eagles boys’ basketball head coach Matt Dennis said that the shot clock was something that you could see coming.

“I am not passionate about it one way or the other,” he said. “The way the game is played right now, it is not going to have a high impact on the regular portion of the game. But the biggest impact it will have is at the end of the game. It ends the two-minute stall at the end of the game.”

Dennis agreed with Rogers on the games Saturday that there were very few times when any possession took longer than 35 seconds.

Dennis said that players from other states were polled and they felt there were positives for the game and the excitement that it brought.

“But my fear is that for small schools trying to get volunteers for games to run the shot clock,” Dennis said. “Right now we are struggling to find people to run the game clock and game management. It puts a pretty high-pressure role into the hands of another volunteer and that can be tricky.”

He also thinks that poor shooting teams are going to struggle even more.

“Teams that are more talented are going to dominate more,” he said. “It takes away the strategy that teams that have one player can control the ball. It benefits teams that are very skilled and deep.

“The state said that the the shot clock was not really a consideration for getting players ready for the next level. But in Minnesota with the amount of talent that the state puts into their college ranks, it must have been a consideration at some level.”