@HighEliteMajor
I’m exactly with your last post. Exactly.
That has brought me to several conclusions…
The most-obvious conclusion is that we have carried this concept of being undermanned all year. And now we have picked up a couple extra players that aren’t exactly burning up the court, but they do give us some emergency backup.
So isn’t it possible we have brainwashed ourselves into feeling like we are an inferior team this year? We’ve been leaning on this “undermanned” crutch all year and maybe we finally put too much weight on it and snapped the crutch!
That is one idea. Hence, my solution for this is that we do NOT accept any excuses (crutches) moving forward.
Okay… so if that isn’t the biggest issue… let’s start looking at some excuses (reasons) why we are playing so poorly. In this thread, we have played two new reasons:
Team feuding
Pot use
It doesn’t seem like we can totally substantiate either of these reasons. But we are seeing WHY we are losing so many games; lack of hustle! Most of our guys seem to be more interested in watching the game instead of playing it. Just watch tonight. Shots will go up and watch what our players are doing. They are just watching the game, not fighting for rebounding position.
Maybe our guys are just too busy NOT being in the present. I covered that in another thread… not too many people seem to buy into that one. The book I mentioned really describes how performance in our lives is optimized by keeping our consciousness in the now.
Consider how much pressure is on these guys to extend the streak. That pressure only exists when our guys are NOT engaging in the present. If they aren’t in the present, they are in the past or in the future. In the past thought probably goes like, “oh man, our last 13 teams have won our conference and we really have to win it, too!” This is stressful and induces our guys to watch the game more than play it.
Then they think of the future… “oh man, we are going to be the team that blows the streak! We will go down in KU history as the team that blew it! Yikes!” This is stressful and can either help to develop a chip or it can freeze our guys because of the fear. Obviously, it looks like the later!
I’ve been busy trying to apply this book to my life. Trying to live more in the present. It isn’t easy to do because it means retraining the brain and requires killing that constant voice running in my head. It requires a kind of zen approach to removing all the chaos in the mind and focusing on just one thing. So far, I have been able to do it in spurts. Those spurts are excellent! Wish I could have applied it back in my own basketball playing days!
