FanPost

On Winning

I have a confession to make.  I had followed the trend and believed that the Pac-10 tournament was an insignificant, no-pressure event, that really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. After watching the tournament this weekend, and carefully reading the post-game press and comments from our coaches and players, I want to make the case that the tournament is important and a critical part of our teams psyche, for this year and moving forward.


  1. What did our head coach set as our goals for the season with every player on our team?  "On our first day of practice, we talked about three goals," Love said. "Well, we've got two out of three, now we need to get the third."

    The goals were Pac-10 regular-season championship, Pac-10 tournament championship, and national championship.

    We all love our coach.  He is by far the best coach in America.  If he sets out this tournament as being an important goal at the beginning of the season then I think we need to trust him and passionately support it.  (Also note that his protege, Jamie Dixon, has taken Pitt to another Big East championship in the tournament, overcoming incredible adversity with injuries etc.)
  2. Our players HATE TO LOSE.  I have underestimated how important this is to this particular team and to Howland teams in general.  This is psychologically important.  Consider this quote from our favorite center "We just don't want to lose,'' UCLA center Kevin Love said. "That's just the overall theme. Being such a competitive team, we're playing cards in the locker room, we're playing video games after the game, nobody ever wants to lose. That's the biggest thing on this team.
    "We're so competitive no matter what it is. We're trying to go out there and win. We don't want anymore losses the rest of the season. We want to be cutting the nets down (today), and also six games after that."  By nature teams that win have winners, and being a winner is as much about HATING TO LOSE as it is about winning sometimes.    
  3. During Coach Howland's long tenure, we are probably going to have bad things happen in the Pac-10 tournament.  And bad things may happen in the NCAA tournament.  And bad things may happen late in the regular season.  But these are part of the sports process, and I think that it is important to recognize that it is not the coach's fault, it is part of the dynamics of basketball.  Will Mbah a Moute and Love be able to play in the tournament?  Probably.  If they weren't, however, it still was not the wrong decision to play them.  The impact on our teams WINNING MOJO from being able to overcome this type of adversity is intangible, and I (now) firmly believe that this type of attitude through the entire year is what is going to bring MULTIPLE BANNERS back to Pauley over time.  

Ben Howland has brought players into our program who are winners.  In every season there is an ebb and flow because it is impossible to maintain intensity for the whole season, in any sport peaking at the right time is key for ultimate success.  Clearly he believes that peaking in the conference tournament is critical preparation for peaking in the Dance.  If we lose, is it the end of the world?  No.  Should we put the bench in more to give them critical experience? Yes.  But we should also go after the second of our three goals - Winning the Pac-10 tournament championship.

As I said in the beginning of my post, I did not believe this coming into this tournament.  I know that many of you may respectfully disagree with this sentiment.  But after a lot of reflection, I think the best coach in America is on to something with his passion to end up #1 on April 7.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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