It’s only a matter of time, it seems to me.
Is the shot clock coming to high school basketball in the state?
The question continues to be studied by the Illinois High School Association, but selected holiday tournaments are giving players, coaches and fans alike the chance of seeing it in action.
“I think it was great,” Marmion coach Joe Piekarz said. “It kept the pace going.”
His Cadets opened the season at Batavia’s Ken Peddy Classic, which employed a 35-second shot clock, and Piekarz loved it.
“In the four games we played, there were four total shot clock violations,” Piekarz said. “We had two and our opponents had two. One of them cost us late in what was a two-point game at the time with Waubonsie Valley.
“The players loved it, and the people running it did an outstanding job. I thought it was very seamless.”
Teams have 35 seconds to launch a shot that must at least hit the rim or they lose possession.
The 59th annual Plano Christmas Classic, scheduled for Dec. 27-30, will be next to employ a shot clock. It was a hot topic Wednesday at the tourney seeding meeting among coaches in the 16-team field.
Marmion will be making its debut in the long-running tournament in Piekarz’s second season. The Cadets (6-3) drew the second seed behind defending champion Burlington Central (6-2).
“That’s a great compliment,” Piekarz said. “There’s a lot of really good teams in this outstanding tournament.”
Piekarz is familiar with the tourney, having coached at Plano during his previous tenure at Indian Creek. He reached out to officials shortly after coming to Marmion, asking to be considered the next time they had an opening.
When Longwood left, “we scooped it up,” Piekarz said. “I know the tradition. I want the Marmion community to experience what the tournament is all about.”
Burlington Central coach Brett Porto said he’s never coached with a shot clock but is looking forward to it.
“It adds more strategy and situational awareness to the game as well as creating a faster pace,” he said.
Rounding out the top four seeds at three and four are Kaneland (8-1) and Peoria Notre Dame (3-6), respectively.
The Irish have one of the marquee players in the event with 6-foot-7 junior Cooper Koch, an Iowa commit who recently returned to action from injury.
That came in a 63-61 victory over defending Class 1A state champion Yorkville Christian (2-8), the tournament’s sixth seed.
“We’re still scrambling but we’re getting better, getting some people back,” Peoria Notre Dame coach Tom Lacher said. “We’re going to be better.”
The Irish and Burlington Central have developed quite a rivalry since joining the field in 2016.
Peoria Notre Dame had overtime losses to the Rockets in the championship game in 2017 and 2021, sandwiched around back-to-back wins in 2018 and 2019.
Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe, meanwhile, is looking forward to it.
“It seems like the shot clock is coming,” he said. “Some concerns we have are you have to have people to run it, and watching college games, there’s a lot of stops to go to the monitors to check on rulings, which we won’t have.
“I like moving the ball around to get a good shot. The challenge is you don’t want to end up taking a bad shot with time running out.”
Batavia coach Jim Nazos said two faculty members who had both played the game ran the shot clock and neither had an issue.
“I like it and think the IHSA should go to it sooner rather than later,” he said. “We have it in the pros and college. We should play by the same rules.”
It won’t likely be unanimous, however.
East Aurora athletic director Fil Torres, whose Christmas tournament won’t use the shot clock, believes the cost outweighs perceived benefits.
He also feels “35 seconds is too long.”
Playing at St. Charles East, which had the clock, East Aurora coach Rick Robinson said, “We never got close to time running out. It works for us. We like to speed up the game.”
Ticktock, ticktock.
