The Austin Packers boys basketball team fell 50-33 to DeLaSalle in the Class 3A championship game Saturday evening. It was the No. 1 seed beating No. 2, and I knew it was going to be a tough game for the "underdog" Packers to come out on top.
Regardless, congratulations to Austin for an amazing season with a final record of 30-1. That's a pretty incredible run that I'm sure the boys - and the Austin community - won't soon forget. How about a cheer for all the Austin fans as well? Word has it they had about 3,500 people as part of the "Red Sea" in the Target Center for the title game. They were part of a 13,000-plus crowd that night, which was the biggest the tournament had seen since 1997.
The game started out pretty close. After watching for a few minutes, I figured that was a good thing for Austin. The longer they could hang with the DeLaSalle team, the better. The defending-champion Islanders moved ahead slightly before the half and went to the locker room with a 28-17 lead.
Comeback falls flat, thanks to 'stall ball'
DeLaSalle came out strong in the second half, and I could tell it was definitely going to be an uphill battle. But Austin didn't give up and they didn't go away. If DeLaSalle wanted another title, it was going to have to earn it. Austin cut the deficit down to 10 with just more than six minutes left in the game. The Packers had the momentum, causing DeLaSalle to take a timeout.
Then things got boring.
DeLaSalle held onto the ball for probably a good minute-and-a-half. They passed. They dribbled. But they stopped playing basketball. It killed any kind of momentum Austin had going and took the game out of reach. What bothered me was that DeLaSalle just sat on its lead. I didn't agree with it. To me, it's the same thing as running up the score or taking a knee to get to overtime instead of going for the win. (1998 Vikings, anyone?)
Is this solely why Austin didn't win the game? Absolutely not. Could Austin have tried to change up their defense or foul during that long stretch of "stall ball" by DeLaSalle? Sure. But there's another solution: A shot clock.
Shot clock? Put it up.
I'll be the first to tell you that basketball is not my go-to favorite sport. It's just not. A big reason (besides the fact that I love baseball and hockey) is all of the fouls, timeouts and slow pace of games that often occurs in the final few minutes. This can be especially true of high school games in Minnesota, where there are no shot clocks.
I know this has been brought up before, and there are various pros and cons, I'm sure. During tourney time, I was involved in a Twitter discussion with Eric Johnson (Austin Daily Herald photographer) and Brendan Burnett-Kurie (Faribault Daily News sports editor) about the shot clock. Brendan even wrote a column about why the state tournament needs one.
As a sports fan, I just think shot clocks need to be there, otherwise it's not very fun to watch. I don't even care how much time you put on it; just get it there. It'll at least put a limit on how long teams can pass the ball around and hopefully cut down on the fouls.
I'm no expert on basketball, but maybe if this one thing changed, I'd enjoy it just a little more. Of course, maybe then there would be something else to make me shake my head. Who knows? But right now, I'm all for giving the shot clock a try at the high school level.
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