Select high schools across Kansas adopt shot clocks for high school basketball

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - About 1/3 of the high schools in Kansas have chosen to adopt a trial-based shot clock for the 2024-25 boys and girls basketball seasons.

This marks the first time in state history that shot clocks will be used at the high school level.

“The coaches are just excited to keep the game moving, and the athletes that I have talked to are excited for the same reason. They don’t want to be in a situation where a team is delaying the ball on them,” KSHSAA Assistant Executive Director Kyle Doperalski told 13 Sports.

The 30-second shot clock is utilized in every single college and professional basketball game you watch. But it’s been completely absent at the high school level in Kansas, until now.

Roughly half of the states in the U.S. have adopted the shot clock since the NFHS approved it a few years ago.

“This has been a topic that has been discussed nationally for the last several years,” Doperalski added.

In January of 2024, KSHSAA’s Executive Board approved the decision to become one of those states on a one-year trial basis, but not every school has to use it.

“We’re unique in Kansas in the fact that we just aren’t either all in or all out,” he said.

While it’s completely optional for a school to use, teams do have to adapt to what the host school of a game has chosen no matter what they voted.

125 schools voted yes. 215 voted no. 89% of 6A, 94% of 5A, and 69% of 4A all are participating in the use of the shot clock.

But only 28% of 3A, 8% of 2A, and 11% of 1A schools will use it this year.

“Financially speaking it is an investment,” Doperalski acknowledged. “It’ll just take one more person at the score table, and sometimes those schools are stretched thin enough just to find two table crew personnel. A scoreboard operator, and then a scorebook keeper as well. Now, it’ll be a third person if and when a shot clock is adopted state wide.”

Since this is just a one-year trial, the decision will be revisited next year.

“The executive board wanted to allow schools to make their own decisions in this one year trial pilot,” Doperalski said. “And then after this season, the board and the staff and the schools themselves will be discussing what the future might hold.”

The entire Centennial League voted ‘no’, making up all but one of the only 6A and 5A schools to vote ‘no’.

Here’s the full list of schools with how they voted on KSHSAA’s website.

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