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Dec. 11--My plans have been foiled. For the past few months, I've been vaguely planning a story on the shot clock, the new wrinkle in the game plan of every Washington prep boys basketball coach. In my mind, it was fantastic: scathing opinions from supporters and naysayers, the grind-it-out coaches cursing and the run-and-gun teams rejoicing, and the players happy for an excuse to take more shots. But, with Adna's football team taking out a few years' worth of frustrations over the past few weeks, the implications of a 35-second shot clock were forgotten.

And then the preseason basketball schedule started, and it wasn't until I'd taken my seat last Wednesday in Cheeseland to watch Toledo and Napavine face off that I remembered why I'd been suspiciously eying the start of this season, like a child suspiciously eyes small Christmas packages.

There it was, mounted near each basket.

It lit up. It ticked down. On all of two possessions in 36 minutes of play, the unfamiliar horn bellowed in disapproval at a too-tedious possession.

That was it. I counted a total of seven instances, all game, in which the shot clock became any kind of a factor.

Neither team seemed the worse off for it. It was a frantic, fast-paced game anyway but, as it was relatively close throughout, the shot clock forced the teams to manage their possessions in the last minute -- which led to an ending that featured a handful of turnovers, a few technical fouls, and at least three chances for Toledo to shave down its three-point lead.

This was a far cry from the typical small-school close-game ending, which follows a predictable formula: 1. Winning team holds the ball until the 1:00 mark. 2. Losing team fouls. 3. Winning team hits a free throw. 4. Losing team runs downcourt as fast as it can and either scores, turns the ball over or misses a shot. 5. Repeat.

The end result? A team trailing by three or more rarely comes back to win. It does happen, on occasion, but it's not a thing of beauty to behold. The last minute drags on and the fans cast bored glances at their timepieces. The janitor stands in the corner, anxiously leaning on his broom. The scoreboard tops out at 10 fouls a team.

Those days seem to be over. We'll see whether or not that changes when the playoffs roll around.

One detractor from the change, however, is Centralia coach Ron Brown.

"So far, I haven't found out where it's located on the wall," Brown joked. "I asked the kids if we have one the first game. I did not look at it once during the game."

Centralia's grand old man of the hardwood said he didn't necessarily see the clock helping many teams, though it may hurt a few.

"Why they did it, I don't know," he said. "But it's here."

The clock wasn't much of a factor in W.F. West's first game of the season, a fairly uneventful loss to Mark Morris.

"I think both of us were willing to attack," Bearcat coach Ryan Robertson said, of the clock's lack of an impact. "But it may be a factor. Teams may be more likely to use zone presses."

The Cats, for one, may throw in a basic full-court man-to-man pressure at some point in the season, to force opponents to use up a bit more time bringing the ball upcourt, and perhaps bring the new clock into play.

"We'll see how that works out," Robertson said.

The shot clock, at this point, is a nonfactor. The type of team that can run through its offense for 35 seconds without turning it over or taking a bad shot, can probably get a good shot in a much shorter time span.

That being said, it generally doesn't take much convincing to get high school kids to take bad shots.

Blake Knows

I ran into Blake Anthony, last year's Central 2B League MVP, two weeks ago, and asked him how his old team would do this year. Colton Brown, he informed me, would be the new go-to guy -- which I absorbed skeptically, considering I couldn't have picked him out of a lineup of the other eight or nine Brown young men that seem to play for Napavine these days.

Sure enough, Colton Brown -- not Jordan, Trevor, Micah, Ron, Cleveland, LeRoy, Chris or Kevin -- scored 13 of his game-high 20 points in the first quarter and shot 4 for 4 from long range in his starting debut against Toledo. I suppose this means I'll never doubt Blake Anthony again.

Preseason Watch-List

It's always fun to throw a few names out as local players to keep an eye on, so here's my preseason all-area breakout team: Brock Wade, forward, W.F. West; Colton Brown, guard, Napavine; Nate Trotter, center, Adna; Riley Alvord, guard, Mossyrock; and Davante Harris, guard, Tenino. None of them were regular starters this season, but you'll hear more about them as the year wears on.

Credit: The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash.