UcMiami
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- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
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I think it does become the subject of discussion and a distraction from focusing on the basketball itself and the process of preparing for each game. There is as you say the focus on 'not losing'. In a way it becomes the reason so many near upsets become defeats in the last minutes - the underdog suddenly is thinking about how great a win will be and how they must not do anything to lose from such a strong position, and stop playing to win.When coaching youth soccer teams, there were a few players that were more focused on not losing any games, rather than being present in the game at hand. This brings to mind this year's SC team, and the balance of three things - a potential natty repeat, a potential undefeated season + natty, and the natty itself.
If a team in in the midst of an undefeated season, do they feel that pressure daily, and does that take away the focus of the ultimate goal of a national championship? There were a lot of headlines written about being undefeated, and yet every player would rather have a natty than be undefeated going into the tourney and then losing.
At Uconn, it has often become a multi-year distraction - that 2003 teams was amassing the longest women's streak in history that reach 70 games in the semi finals, in 2017 the streak was the longest NCAA streak ever at 111 when MissSt came calling. And Maya and co. laid a complete egg at Stanford mid season to end a streak of 90. (A feat they repeated to end a 47 game streak in 2014 which probably helped in the creation of most of that 111 game streak.