Reduce the 35 Second Shot Clock

The first weekend of March Madness is an amazing time of year. Tons of college basketball games happen over the course of four days. This years tournament has been especially good. There have been amazing upsets, like Mercer over Duke. There have been lots of close games; In fact their have been more overtime games then in any tournament in recent history. I have truly enjoyed the sporting spectacular. However, all this college basketball also highlights one of the things that is most wrong with NCAA Men's basketball, the 35 second shot clock.

The invention of the shot clock was a great moment in basketball. It forces an increased pace of play by setting a minimum number of possession in a game and ultimately makes the game more exciting. The NBA, the premier league in the world, uses a 24 second shot clock, which if teams used completely during every 48 minutes long game, would result in 120 possessions. The international game, used at the Olympics and World Championships, also has a 24 second shot clock, but they only play for 40 minutes. When it comes to timing, the WNBA follows the international rules. NCAA women's basketball is played with a 30 second shot clock over 40 minute of game play. Only the NCAA Men's rules use a 35 second shot clock. It is the longest in all of the sport and it allows for the most time wasting and boredom.

With a 35 second shot clock and 40 minutes of game time and NCAA men's game could result in only 68.57 possessions, or just over 34 per team. Luckily, almost nobody plays that slow, it would be downright unwatchable. However, teams like Virginia (62.4 possessions/game, fifth slowest in Division I) do paly slowed down boring styles passed on milking the clock and palying defense. Virginia can get a lead and then switch to focusing on defense and wasting time. It is a boring style of play to watch and a boring style to play against.

Nobody turns on a college basketball game hoping to see a 54-48 final. We want to see fast breaks resulting in transition points. We want to see motion offenses resulting in Alley-Oop dunks. We want to see dribble penetration with kick-outs for open threes. We don't want to watch point guards dribble in endless circles around the three point line, nursing a lead while they drain time off the clock.

This scourge of time wasting has an easy fix. The NCAA just needs to lower the shot clock the the 24 seconds used throughout the rest of men's basketball or at least the 30 seconds used in the women's college game. There is no reason that 18-24 years old, semi-professional (face it, this is essentially what they are), basketball players need an extra 11 seconds to set up their offenses. It is not like they are still learning how to play the game. Most of these guys have been playing year round on high school and AAU teams since they were 14 years old. They don't need the handicap.

March Madness and men's college basketball isn't broken. In fact it is maybe as good as ever, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved. The NCAA needs to reduce the shot clock down from 35 to 24 seconds as soon as possible. They should improve the game to be the best it can be.