Once the NCAA finally pushed the sport of men’s lacrosse into the shot clock era, it seemed inevitable that the college game would begin to look fundamentally different.

As the first regular season with an official shot clock has come to pass, that is what has happened — and mostly in a very good way, say a handful of Division I coaches and a longtime lacrosse rules administrator.

“The shot clock has been fantastic for the game in so many ways, and it’s been great for the fans,” says North Carolina head coach Joe Breschi.

“There are more shots and more saves. There is more of an excitement level with more scoring,” Breschi adds. “You can’t manufacture fake shots or kill the clock substituting. It has brought back more of the riding game, and [lacrosse] is now more of a transition and clearing game. I love the shot clock.”

While you likely won’t find many — if any — coaches in favor of the newly adopted rules that govern the crease dive, good luck in your search for negative feedback regarding the presence of a shot clock.

This year’s game has featured an 80-second clock that begins with each possession and includes a 20-second limit for the team in possession to avoid a turnover by getting the ball out of their defensive end and across the midline. Unless the offensive team puts a shot on goal before the clock expires (hitting the goalie, his stick or a pipe), a change of possession occurs automatically.

One consistent quibble with the shot clock concerns the mandated reset to 80 seconds. When the NCAA men’s lacrosse rules committee modifies the new regulations over the next two years, it will strongly consider changing the time to 60 seconds in certain restart situations.    

The shot clock was designed to increase the pace of play and the number of offensive possessions to create more scoring, and to curtail stalling with maximum objectivity. No longer are officials subjectively enacting a 30-second ‘timer-on” clock after deciding when an offense is stalling.

“The first reason why a visible shot clock has been great is that everyone — fans, coaches, players — is able to understand what’s going on,” says Rutgers head coach Brian Brecht. “The [former] invisible shot clock, the timer-on call, the game being too much at the discretion of the officials, not good for anyone involved. The shot clock is a big win for the sport.”

It didn’t take long for Willie Scroggs, the secretary-rules editor for all three divisions of men’s lacrosse, to realize how the shot clock was being embraced throughout the collegiate game.

“Usually at the beginning of the year, there are a bunch of things for coaches to complain about,” Scroggs says. “In recent years, it was the faceoff — too much cheating, too much inconsistency the way it was officiated, too much of this and that. Coaches complain about a lot of stuff.

“This year, all we got early in the season was positive feedback about the shot clock, and it has remained mostly positive,” adds Scroggs, who has fielded consistent suggestions to shorten the shot clock to 60 seconds on re-sets, for example, following a save or shot off a post, after which the offense maintains possession. “I think we’ve gotten to a pretty good solution.”

A midseason report by Inside Lacrosse revealed that the shot clock indeed had created an increase in pace of play across the Division I game, reflected in late March by a record 82 possessions per game, the highest number recorded over a 10-year, NCAA data set. In addition at midseason, Division I teams were averaging 11.2 goals per game, the highest scoring average per team over a 13-season data set.

Meanwhile, in other trends that point directly to the shot clock and clearing count, turnovers and failed clears have increased notably, while shooting percentage and offensive efficiency have declined. Goalies are seeing and saving more shots, as offenses can’t keep possessions alive anymore with “phantom shots” that purposely miss the cage.

The clock has forced offenses to settle for more shots that favor the defenses. As the shot clock winds down, teams must choose to attempt to score near the end of a possession, or surrender the ball to get defensive midfielders into the action on time.

“I think the clearing timer has been great for the game. It has created challenges that have made it more of a sloppy game,” says Loyola head coach Charley Toomey, who originally was not in favor of a shot clock, but has long since come around.

“[The shot clock] takes some of the coaching out of it, and it also takes things out of the referees’ hands,” Toomey adds. “The fans wanted more scoring and a faster pace, and they’re getting what they wanted.”

Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala noted how the shot clock has affected teams’ abilities to manage a lead — starting with his 8-6 Blue Jays.

“When I look at some of our games, like Syracuse (14-10 loss) or Ohio State (14-13 loss) or Rutgers (14-13 win), I think of how we kind of imploded in the fourth quarter and how we used to protect leads,” Pietramala says. “We’d put the ball in the ice box and take our time clearing and subbing our guys in [deliberately].

“The shot clock has changed that, and it really has been good for the game,” he adds.

As popular as the shot clock quickly has become, the dive rule has drawn the opposite reaction, and coaches appear united in the idea of either altering the rule or trying to get rid of it.

The rule stipulates that shooters can leave their feet and enter the crease to score a goal, provided the ball enters the goal before the shooter touches the crease for the score to count. The shooter also must be moving in a direction away from the mouth of the goal.

Coaches are thoroughly dissatisfied with the way the dive has been officiated. In their minds, the result has been too much inconsistency in either allowing a goal or taking it off the scoreboard if a shooter lands in the crease.

If the shooter is pushed into the crease, the goal is allowed. If the shooter is not pushed and makes contact with the opposing goalie by not moving away from the mouth of the goal, the goal is disallowed and the shooter is assessed a one-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that must be served full-time.

“The shot clock has been fabulous. With the adjudication of the dive, we have taken two steps forward and one giant step backward,” says Denver coach Bill Tierney, who adds that controversial goals taken off the board cost the Pioneers dearly in losses to Duke and Princeton.

“I like the dive. I just don’t like the rule,” adds Tierney, who favors painting the precise mouth of the goal and forbidding shooters from touching it to maintain consistency and goalies’ health.

“I think we should get rid of it,” says Breschi, who claims two goals by Timmy Kelly taken away figured hugely in a one-goal loss to Johns Hopkins. “To me it’s getting officiated differently from game to game. Was he going towards the cone or away from the goalie? Was he pushed into the crease or not? I don’t see what [the dive] has added to the game. I think it’s been a disaster.”

“It’s a very challenging piece of the game to officiate,” says Toomey, who thinks the NCAA should consider using a fourth official to help make those crease calls more consistently. “I think coloring in that crease area and making it illegal — no goal — if you land in that area and were not pushed, is the way to go.”

“I thought the rules committee did a great job helping officials do their job better by bringing in the shot clock,” Brecht says. “Then, they threw in the dive, which is causing too many controversies and putting a whole bunch of decision-making right back on the officials.”

Pietramala, who is a Division I liaison to the rules committee, says it would not surprise him if the rules committee , in the interest of player safety and officiating consistency, modified the dive rule or eliminated it by the 2020 season.

“I was a proponent of [the dive rule],” Pietramala says. “But it’s been horrible.”

Scroggs expects the rules committee to tackle the dive rule after the 2019 season and possibly adopt a 60-second shot clock reset quickly as well, since all Division I, II and III schools will be equipped with clocks that can reset to 60 or 80 seconds.

“There was such a hue and cry to bring back the dive, but it’s really hard to officiate. It happens so fast,” Scroggs says. “With all of the plays I’ve reviewed, the officials do get it right most of the time. But we’re going to address it to make it easier for officials. We’ve got to define it better and hang our hats on something.”

Dive issues aside, Breschi looks at the game’s landscape and sees a significantly improved product.

“Teams can’t grind it out as much and take the air out of the ball. It’s brought back the riding game to more teams,” Breschi says. “The shot clock has forced you to choose how you want to substitute, and how much you want to push the ball. It has minimized the faceoff a bit, although you still want the ball a lot.

“I think the game is in a really good place right now.”