Before each season, fans, sports writers, alumni, and even coaches, look at rosters and schedules, trying to get a sense of what the year to come will be like. You look at how many returning players you have. You look at your depth (or lackthereof) at all five positions. You look at the schedule and how difficult it will be to navigate, desperately searching for positive signs that a good season may be in order.
What many don’t realize until after the season are the external factors that cannot be accounted for, many of which have nothing to do with basketball. It would be pretty sobering to look at a roster and try to project how many players will be declared academically ineligible. How many players will transfer out? How many players will get arrested?!?
After you’ve been around basketball as much as many coaches in the business have, you begin to prepare for and sometimes even expect these things to happen. But some things can still catch you by surprise.
Tuesday morning I left for work with a runny nose, went about my day, got some work done in the office and prepared to leave for home around 6pm after class checks. All at once, it seemed as though I kept feeling weaker and weaker, hotter and hotter. My chest and nose were both congested and I felt like death. I loaded up on medicine and headed home to bed. The next morning I texted one of my co-workers to let him know I wouldn’t be coming in to work due to illness…
“You’re sick too?” he replied…
I spent the majority of that day close enough to the bathroom for the times when my nausea would get the best of me. As I found out later, so did a staggering number of others associated with the team. A week later, the total count has come to 11 people falling victim to flu-like symptoms.
This past weekend, we traveled to Athens, OH to take on Ohio University. A win there would mean we clinched the conference regular season championship. It was a big game for us, and for them too. It was their “Senior Night,” they started a campaign for a “Green Out” in which everyone was instructed to wear green. The game was nationally televised on ESPN. The stakes were high.
We were pretty confident coming in. We were 12-1 in the conference, had already beaten Ohio by 17 at home, and were riding a 9-game conference winning streak heading into the game in Athens.
By this time, the worst of my sickness had subsided. I still had some congestion and a runny nose that wouldn’t quit. But some others were just beginning their cycle of flu. A couple coaches had to drive separate from the team bus due to being sick, others couldn’t eat team meals because of the nausea. We were unprepared for the sickness making its way through the program.
I may have to double check, but I don’t think “overconfident” or “unprepared” were one of the pillars to John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. It seemed as though our counterparts, however, were very focused, driven, and put themselves and their teammates in positions to be successful. They jumped on us early and never let up. The crowd was WILD! They were organized, loud and didn’t quit, even when their team went up by as many as 30 points.
Walking out of the gym that night, I remember thinking that I felt worse after a 24 point drubbing, than I ever did at any point of having the flu.
Ohio U is worse than the flu…
I hated their fans immediately after the game. I wanted to line them up and punch every single one of them. They said some of the most disgusting and hate-filled drivel that I’ve ever come across in my years around basketball. Two days later, though, I’ve grown to appreciate what they did.
They dominated our team well before the game even began. A group of 20 of them began berating one of our players because of how he was stretching. Making many references I’m sure their mother’s didn’t teach them. They were in our heads from the get-go. They were loud when they needed to be, they picked their team up when they needed it, and they were even pretty funny at times. If the game had been close at all, it would have been difficult to pull out the win in that atmosphere, regardless.
The fans, who are many times seen as entities that don’t affect the outcome of games, really opened my eyes to how they can play a huge part in helping their team win. It’s something that is difficult to prepare for, you just have to experience it.
External factors are rarely thought about in the preseason, but can be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful season…
