‘When, not if’: Timing a factor as PIAA basketball committee votes down shot clock proposal

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, June 18, 2025 | 7:57 PM

For some, the debate about adding shot clocks to Pennsylvania high school basketball is more about “when” rather than “if.”

The PIAA basketball steering committee met Tuesday and voted down a proposal that would’ve recommended adding the 35-second clocks, but some of the opposition was about the timing rather than the clocks themselves.

Which season would be best for implementing them: 2026-27, 2027-28 or later?

“It wouldn’t be for this school year coming up because it doesn’t give anybody enough time to react,” PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said Wednesday. “But is there a timeline in the future?”

However, timing isn’t the only hurdle. Lombardi said schools still have concerns about buying and operating the devices, the training of shot clock operators and game officials, along with the timeline for implementation.

So, for now, the basketball committee wasn’t ready to say yes.

The PIAA board of directors makes the ultimate decisions — so anything is possible — but those decisions are usually based on recommendations from its steering committees. It’s unknown whether the basketball committee’s discussion Tuesday was the last word in the debate for now.

“Could it be? Yes,” Lombardi said. “Could the board do something else? Yes. I don’t know what the board is going to do.”

The PIAA board meets July 15-16 at Penn State for its summer workshop, but for now, shot clocks aren’t on the agenda.

WPIAL chief operating officer Vince Sortino, who attended Tuesday’s basketball meeting, said he believed the PIAA would adopt shot clocks at some point. A recent survey conducted by the PIAA found a majority of schools favor them.

“I see it happening in the very near future,” Sortino said. “It’ll continue to be discussed. It just did not advance to be discussed (by the board) in July.”

Thirty-one states and Washington, D.C., will use shot clocks in some capacity by the start of the 2026-27 season, according to the Associated Press, citing statistics from National Federation of State High School Associations.

Sortino knows the topic better than most.

Along with being a WPIAL administrator and former athletic director, Sortino has run the shot clock at Duquesne University for more than 40 years. He predicted Pennsylvania would inevitably join the majority of other states already using them.

“It’s a matter of when, not if,” Sortino said. “But that’s my own opinion, not the committee’s opinion.”

Timing is often a factor in PIAA decisions. The state association organizes its seasons into two-year cycles, and the board traditionally has aligned significant changes with the start of a new cycle. The next cycles begin in the fall of 2026 and 2028. But there’s nothing preventing a mid-cycle change.

Lombardi said the PIAA would share results from its survey once the board had an opportunity to review them.

“After listening to the conversation yesterday around the table, I don’t know if there’s a fear (of the clocks),” Lombardi said. “I think there’s a real issue coming from the grassroots people on cost and retrofitting their gyms or scoreboards, along with getting good people trained, because there’s a little bit to this. It’s not just ‘flick it on’ and ‘flick it off.’ ”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.