Alaska high school basketball teams welcome long-anticipated adoption of shot clock

After years of speculation and experimentation, the shot clock has officially become woven into the fabric of 4A basketball in Alaska, the highest level of high school competition.

Most teams got their first taste of what it’s like to play with a 35-second limit to get the ball to the rim during in-season tournaments in and out of the state over the past few years. Now it’s here to stay.

All boys and girls varsity games between 4A teams are required to use the shot clock, and coaches of some of the top teams in the state believe it’s long overdue.

“The shot clock has been good for us,” said Thomas Berg, head coach of the reigning 4A state champion Colony girls team. “I think there’s another layer of coaching that goes into the shot clock.”

He specifically cited late-clock defense and offense as the two biggest challenges that require strategic adjustments.

“I’ve been a big fan of that this year,” Berg said. “That’s been fun for us. It doesn’t come up a lot. Most teams play fast enough, but down the stretch in quarters and in games, I think it’s a fun part that adds to the excitement of the basketball game.”

In his eyes, there was a lot of holding and moving the ball without any real offensive attempts at the prep basketball level for years. Berg said now in late-game situations, coaches don’t have to instruct their players to intentionally foul as often.

“If you get a stop and then stack those stops, you got a chance,” he said.

Although the idea of a shot clock has been considered in Alaska basketball circles for years, the Alaska School Activities Association officially instituted the shot clock rule at its Board of Directors meeting in December 2024. The motion passed in a 5-3 vote.

Teams at the 1A, 2A and 3A levels are not required to use a shot clock but can utilize it in tournaments during the regular season or if both schools provide written consent to officials before a non-tournament game.

Chuck Martin is the head coach of the Bettye Davis East Anchorage boys team, the three-time defending 4A state champion, and has been a pillar in the Alaska high school basketball scene for decades. He has long been a proponent of the shot clock and is glad that it’s finally being implemented.

“Even though it’s new, it’s not hard for us to get used to it,” Martin said.

Some of his assistant coaches are still adjusting to it from a strategic standpoint during games, with one example being telling players to hold the ball for longer than the shot clock permits in the final minute of quarters.

“You can’t say ‘one shot’ with 41 seconds left, there’s a (35-second) shot clock,” Martin said. “I tell the players to go play.”

Unlike some of his coaching contemporaries around the state, he has extensive experience with the shot clock during other stretches of his career in different states and levels of competition.

In practice, his staff coaches situational basketball often, so this adaptation is just another wrinkle they have to review.

“The reality is the shot clock doesn’t really come into effect until later in the game,” Martin said.

So far this season, his team has done a good job of getting the ball out before the buzzer sounds, and their late-game operation when games are tight has just become an area of more focus.

He tells his players that the clock is irrelevant most of the time and that they’re going to run what they want to run because a shot-clock violation is not as detrimental of a penalty as others can be at times.

“It’s a dead-ball violation,” Martin said. “It’s better than throwing the ball to them and letting them make a layup, so we don’t sweat it. Our philosophy is that we’re not going to pay attention to the clock because we’re trying to score.”

This year’s edition of the East boys team doesn’t have the post presence it has had in recent seasons. The Thunderbirds are relying more on speed and efficient shooting, so in Martin’s mind, the last thing they have to worry about is the shot clock.

“We’re going to shoot the 3 and we’re going to play the full court and we’re going to take the first shot we get,” he said. “The last couple years when we haven’t been a great shooting team … With this group, you got to let them shoot because that’s probably the best shot we’re going to get (at winning).”

Outsider’s perspective

During last week’s Alaska Airlines Classic tournament at West Anchorage High School, head coaches of two of three boys teams from out of state that participated shared their thoughts on playing with a shot clock.

For Shelby Lewis and his Central High School team from Little Rock, Arkansas, it was “nothing new” and business as usual.

“We’ve been doing the shot clock for the last six years,” he said.

That wasn’t the case for Forest High School head coach Michael Hoffmann and his Wildcats from Ocala, Florida, who won the tournament.

Florida is one of the 18 states that does not mandate the use of a shot clock at the high school level. That won’t be the case for much longer, though, as it’s slated to join the other 32 states and the District of Columbia starting in the 2026-27 season.

“We love the shot clock,” Hoffmann said. “We’ve done it before because we travel a lot or try to.”

His team competed in a tournament in Tennessee last year that utilized the shot clock, and they experienced it on a couple different occasions this season prior to coming to Alaska.

“We want it because we’re a little bit of a quicker team and we’re hoping it gets installed next year,” Hoffmann said.