Bizarre Shot Clock Controversy Leaves Illinois Women’s Basketball Coach Completely Dumbfounded

Illinois defeated North Texas by a comfortable margin during the non-conference women’s college basketball game in Champaign on Sunday night despite a bizarre shot clock violation during the fourth quarter. Head coach Shauna Green was baffled by the strange sequence of events.

She and the Illini were fortunate that it did not have an impact on the outcome.

This is a rather unusual college basketball scenario that does not have a set precedent for how it should be handled. The officials didn’t necessarily do anything right but they didn’t do anything wrong.

Illinois was called for a shot clock violation.

This whole thing went down late in the fourth quarter. The Illini had possession on offense with approximately two minutes left in the game. They were already up by 17 points.

Even though the shot clock did not hit zero, the officials called a shot clock violation.

North Texas got the ball off of the turnover. The Mean Green hit a three-pointer just moments later.

How is that possible? Great question. Illinois head coach Shauna Green would like to know.

By her account of what happened, the shot clock did not start when it was supposed to. She noticed the shot clock did not start but she did not say anything to her players or the officials. Play on. And then the officials suddenly stopped the game to call her team for a violation.

Shauna Green does not understand why.

According to Green, the officials went to the scorer’s table for a video review. They saw that enough time had come off of the game clock to call the Illini for a shot clock violation so they did.

Illinois was forced to forfeit its possession even though the shot clock never started. It was enforced only from the time that came off of the game clock. North Texas got the ball and made a three.