Re: RPI 2011 - 12 Part IV: We ain't Bailen on this season yet, Go Red!!
Interesting. Some of us can find positives to take out of losses and negatives to take out of victories.
Others can't see past the W or the L.
As a long-time fan of UConn women's basketball, I know exactly what you mean. Coach Auriemma can get very upset with his team when they are up by 30 yet are making mental mistakes, and be quite composed when they compete hard and get outplayed and lose a game they could have won. He doesn't pay attention to the score, he pays attention to the play they are running at the moment.
[aside: since public television broadcasts most of their games, I have been pleasantly surprised to notice that even in a blowout the games can still be fun to watch when the players buy into this mentality, especially if you like good team defense. When they are "on" their game, the UConn women's defense reminds me of the '86 Bears defense]
PS Geno was in fine form yesterday, apparently, with the kind of response that seems to fit our recent conversations here: "There is this stuff that you should always have something for everything and after a while it just gets tiresome. They should be allowed to lose once in a while without facing an inquisition from all of their friends, fans, you guys and I think the older they are, the more they are able to handle it. The young kids they get shell shocked. Those are the things that as a young player, you have to try to figure it out. If you come to Connecticut and you are a young player and you think that one mistake, two mistakes, three mistakes are going to cost you a game and 'oh my God, I am the first player at Connecticut to lose a game.' You get scared and you play scared, I don't know any other place in America where they are afraid to lose a game."
I don't want them to feel that way. It is difficult to impress upon them to just play and don't worry about the outcome. When the outcome isn't what we want it to be 'what happened, what happened, what happened.' You take the Notre Dame as a perfect example, nobody talked about how good our defense was.' They are averaging 100 points a game (actually closer to 85) and they are scoring 60 (in regulation). They turned it over 20 times, one kid (Natalie Novosel) shot 5 for 20 from the floor. Nothing we did well was ever mentioned to any of the kids, it was all what we didn't do to win the game. After a while that gets tiresome, it gets very tiresome. It gets tiresome and you say 'Coach you only have to face that four times in the last four years.' That is what I mean, for these kids losing should be a part of the game. It shouldn't be 'how the hell did you let that happen.' They get scared, they get tentative. If I throw a bad pass it will cost us the game so what ends up happening is if you are not careful you freeze up because you play not to lose instead of playing to win. Our job as coaches is to get us past that, play to win,play to win, play to win, make plays, make plays, make plays as opposed 'I don't want to miss this.' "
Change "lose a few games now and then" to "have a losing season now and then" and his rant seems apropos, eh?
