One of the longest raging debates in college lacrosse is that of a shot clock. Both professional leagues use it, and stall warnings can be a mess in college, so why not? Four ILWT staff members (Brendan Staudt, MLL Roundtable co-host; Joe Keegan, MLL Talk panelist; Brendan Chamberlain, ILWT NCAA Lead Writer; James Simmons, ILWT NCAA Columnist) go at it with their opinions on the matter.
Brendan Staudt: YES. There’s shot clocks in MLL & NLL. Kids will better adapt to pro game if one is installed. Will make coaches rethink strategies, timeout uses, will make game faster in my opinion. Those are just some of the reasons.
Joe Keegan: You mean other than the invisible 30-second shot clock that begins at the referees’ discretion? Yeah, there should be. I can’t think of any reason not to have one. Well, unless you play Syracuse every week. I wouldn’t mind winning 24-of-31 draws and hogging the ball all game, every game.
Brendan Chamberlain: Its is a great idea but, a shot clock could be cost prohibitive to the sport across all Divisions. Will all Divisions in the NCAA be able to implement having a shot clock on the field for games. Taking stalling out of the game should be priority #1 this offseason and getting a shot clock is a good start.
James Simmons: I like the 30 second shot clock on the stall warning, as it currently is.
If the NCAA were to use a 30 second shot clock similar to the MLL, the assumed purposes would be to level the playing field, increase offense and increase scoring. Yes, I agree the game would be sped up. That being said I don’t think it would necessarily help level the playing field between teams. The result of a faster game would require teams to rely more heavily on all of their midfield lines and increase the importance of long stick middies. This would actually favor teams with deeper midfields, those teams with better and “fitter” defensive lines, and teams with superior goalies. Take this weekend’s matchup of St. John’s vs. Syracuse. Syracuse has the midfield depth to be able to rely heavily on their second and third midfield lines, St. John’s does not. Additionally, the offensive team would be more likely to back up their shots, so SU would probably have more shots and probably have more goals. As the game moves on and midfield lines get more depleted from exhaustion the deeper SU team would actually control the ball more, have an increase in takeaways and get more shots and probably goals.
I like to see possessions, I like to see well executed offensive plays (good passing opening up opportunities), adding a shot clock would mean increased dodges in the offensive zone, again, favoring the teams with better attack lines. A shot clock would lessen the importance on offensive schemes and increase the importance on individuals.
As far as scoring goes, the increase of shots does not mean an increase of goals. Rushed shots does not mean those shots are necessarily shots on goal. But admittedly a shot clock would probably result in more goals and in games between unequal teams, the scoring would be more lopsided and we would see larger blowouts in the game.
Again, the shot clock would increase speed and possibly scoring, but I think it might have the opposite effect in terms of bridging the talent gap in NCAA.
