The OSSAA voted on the implementation of the shot clock this week. The National Federation came out a few years ago in support of all high schools adopting a shot clock. This was a choice to be made by each state. The majority of states are either already using the shot clock or in the process of changing in the near future. A motion for adopting the shot clock in classes 3A through 6A for the 2024-25 season was brought to OSSAA Board of Directors and they voted for Oklahoma not to adopt the shot clock. The details of the vote are as follows. There are 14 voting members on the board and the vote was a 7 – 7 tie. Protocol is for the board president to cast the deciding vote and the motion was voted down by an 8 – 7 count. A motion to reconsider the decision was made and that also failed. Those are the details.
The rest of this is an opinion and is not necessarily shared by the OBCA as a group. This is a step backwards for basketball in our state. The process of decision making for rules and regulations regarding high school athletics in the State of Oklahoma is flawed. This latest decision is not the fault of the people in the OSSAA who are supervising basketball. Amy Cassell and Brian Lester did a very thorough job in gathering data through surveys of coaches and admin for every classification. The results of the coaches survey were close to unanimous in favor of the shot clock in 5A and 6A. The smaller classes were less in favor of the change with Class A & B still more than 50% in favor. Following that survey was an admin survey with very similar results. The decision to make the motion for just 3A – 6A was based on the surveys. Class 3A was at 67% in favor, with 6A at over 95%.
Board of Directors are put in place to serve the quadrant of the state in which they work, regardless of the size of their school. With the data showing that adopting the shot clock was something that the majority of the schools wanted, I believe this issue was determined by some personal bias. A system that a motion is determined by a vote from a Class A school that is not even involved in the issue is a bad system.
There are certainly some complications with adopting a shot clock, but there are complications in many things that improve our sports. Hopefully we can at some point address this issue in the near future. It would be a shame not to move forward with the rest of the country in making the game better.
Mark Wilson
Executive Secretary
Oklahoma Basketball Coaches Association
OBCA 
