Kentucky adopts shot-clock rule for high school basketball

Change is coming to high school basketball in Kentucky — it’ll just take a few years.

On Wednesday, the Kentucky High School Athletics Association (KHSAA) Board of Control voted that the state will adopt a 35-second shot clock for varsity basketball games by 2027-28 season. The vote was 13-5 in favor of the measure, which will allow schools two full years to save the money to purchase the necessary equipment.

The board had an opportunity to implement the rule ahead of the 2026-27 season but ultimately voted against that and instead will enforce it beginning the following year.

Interestingly enough, the vote came after an August survey of schools across the state showed a majority in Kentucky did not want to adopt a shot clock.

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, “150 of 252 schools (59.5%) voted to continue to allow experimentation ‘until the (National Federation of State High School Associations) adopts a national rule or until the survey can be conducted again in two years.'”

The BOC voted in favor of the change despite the survey results, instead hoping to be forward-thinking and not waiting for national rules to come into place.

“If we don’t do it, it’s going to become mandated,” Damon Kelley, president-elect of the Board of Control, told the newspaper. “Do we want to be one of the last five or six states that has it forced upon us because we wouldn’t modernize our game when everybody else was?”

Nationally, thirty-two states have adopted a shot-clock of varying lengths for prep basketball. The NFHS voted in 2021 to let its member associations adopt a shot clock for varsity and other levels. Four years ago, only eight states had them in use.

According to a report from Fox Sports earlier this year, 31 states and Washington, D.C. will use a shot clock at least at some levels this coming season. The NCAA, meanwhile, has had a shot clock since 1985.