Oh, No! Not Again!

"Some of the breakdowns are baffling to be honest with you.  I can't tell you why because we've proven we can be really good defensively and offensively."

--Rick Barnes, head coach of the Texas Longhorns men's basketball team.

Kansas State sent the Longhorns to their second straight loss and third in four games on Monday night.  This is the second straight year that the Longhorns have nose-dived after an impressive start to the regular season.  

An 11-0 start in conference play had the Longhorns among the top contenders for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. They were, at one time, ranked #1 in the country.  Now they're trying to understand what has gone wrong.  They have to make sure that they don't worry about how far they may fall.

Last year, the Texas Longhorns' basketball team was ranked #1 in January with a 17-0 record. After that they slumped to a 7-9 finish down the stretch and lost to Wake Forest in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.


Here is what Rick Barnes had to say last year during that swoon when asked about the team's mindset:  

"I'd really be guessing if I did. Going into every game, I think that they've have the right mindset and when I watch some of the things happen I'm surprised where it comes from. I don't understand it, because I think we've got a group of guys, you would think with the way they have prepared that they would have things down. But when we do some things during the game it makes me wonder, and I don't know how I can answer that."

Prior to his arrival in at the University of Texas , Barnes' teams had undersachieved twice before. The first time was with Providence during the 1988-89 season when the Friars began 13-0 but ended the season losing seven of their last eight including a first round NCAA Tournament exit. 


The second time was with Clemson during the 1994-95 season when his Tigers began the year 10-0 – including a win at Duke – but lost seven of its last nine games, including a first round exit in the NIT.


Barnes' first disappointing swoon in Texas wasn't until year #3 in Austin, the 2000-01 season.  

This time, Texas was on a red-hot streak coming into the NCAA Tournament.  The Longhorns had ended the regular season with eight straight wins. As it so happened, No. 11 seed Temple was also on a hot streak, winning ten of its last 12 games. The Owls hit their first four three-pointers and the Longhorns were soon down 19 in another season-ending loss.  

Disappointment struck again in the 2004-05 season. After a promising start to the year, star player P.J. Tucker became academically ineligible and LaMarcus Aldridge suffered a hip injury. From mid-January on, Brad Buckman and Daniel Gibson carried the team.

By the time the conference tournament and NCAA Tournament rolled around, the Longhorns appeared to be spent and overworked. They fell to Colorado in their opening game of the Big 12 Tournament and then lost to Nevada in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. 

Once again, I advise Coach Barnes that recruiting and teaching basketball is only part of the job.  It's not just about the X's and O's.  Coach Barnes also needs to learn about how to handle the psychological aspect of his team and get them emotionally ready to play a tough conference schedule, a tougher Big-12 tournament and an even tougher NCAA tournament.  The Longhorns need to understand mental conditioning and learn skills for emotional resilience.  


If he doesn't, he may never get another chance at a Final Four appearance, much less an NCAA title.  


Excerpts from ESPN.com, Dallas Observer, and LostLettermen.com (February, 28, 2011 and March 1, 2011).

  

Texas Longhorn QB Colt McCoy Finally Learns to Relax

In his last home game, Colt McCoy, the University of Texas Longhorns' quarterback, burned the Kansas Jayhawks for 396 yards and four touchdowns. He connected on 32 of 41 passes, one incompletion short of 80 percent.

In that game, McCoy set a record by winning more college football games than any other quarterback in the history of the sport. He has completed a higher percentage of passes in one season (76.7, in 2008) than any other quarterback in the history of the sport.

The 6-foot-3, 214 pound McCoy, from Tuscola, Texas, has led the No. 3 Longhorns to an 11-0 record and the Big 12 South championship. He is 3-0 as a bowl starter. He is 3-1 against Oklahoma.

Until recently, however, McCoy never satisfied; and driving himself crazy.

"You come back for your senior year after a good year," McCoy said. "You have the opportunity to go to the NFL. You win a bunch of awards. You almost win the Heisman. All those things you accomplish, and you come back as a senior, and you have to do this and do that and play perfect."

Offensive coordinator Greg Davis has preached for five seasons, that McCoy could be a better quarterback and leader by relaxing.

McCoy not only set that completion percentage record last season but also led the Longhorns to a 12-1 record and a No. 4 finish in the final poll.

"I called him in January," Davis said. "I said, 'Look, you just completed 77 percent of your passes for the season. I just completed 36 years of coaching. I've never had a guy do that.

"'Now, let me go a step further. Nobody who has ever coached quarterbacks has had a guy do that. So to think you're just going to walk back out here next year and it's going to go to 80 is unrealistic.'"

But, McCoy entered the 2009 season trying to be perfect, do everything right, but ended up playing too cautiously. The team continued to win, but wasn't playing well, and most certainly wasn't having fun. The entire team was tight and underperforming.

"I was playing good and giving my team its best chance to win," McCoy said, "but at the same time it was not fun. I was beating myself up. I kept digging myself deeper and deeper in a hole that I couldn't get out of."

"You put so much pressure on yourself and expectations on yourself to be the best, to complete all your passes and throw three or four touchdowns and throw for 300 yards," McCoy said. "When you don't, and you decided to come back for your senior year and come back and have an up-and-down year and you don't do all that, it hurts you mentally. You end up not having fun. You stress out all week. You think, 'I'll do better next week.'"

"It's easy to say, 'I'm going to get out of it,'" McCoy said. "But to get out of it, physically and mentally and completely, was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."

"I wasn't losing it on anybody else but myself," he said. "I wasn't being myself around the facility, around my teammates. I was most pissed off at myself. When you're a quarterback, a leader, you've been here for four years, you can't do that. That's something I know. I wasn't trying to act that way. I was in a hole. I was concerned."

Nevertheless, Texas kept winning. The Longhorns went into Dallas to play Oklahoma with a 5-0 record.

"I could have been so much better," McCoy said. "I could have been such a better leader and teammate. … I was frustrated and trying to figure out what was wrong with me instead of helping the young receivers, staying after practice, making sure they knew where I want them to be."

McCoy had his worst statistical game of the season against OU. He completed 21 of 39 passes for only 127 yards. He lost two fumbles, one at the Oklahoma goal line. With Texas trying to extend a 16-13 lead, he threw an interception to Sooners cornerback Brian Jackson at the Oklahoma 9. McCoy chased Jackson down and made the tackle.

That might have been the play that saved McCoy's season. After Davis broke down the video of the game, he called McCoy into his office.

"I said, 'Of all the records you've broken, of all the things you've done, I'm probably more proud of you for this ballgame than I am for any ballgame,'" Davis said.

"He said, 'Why?'

"I said, 'Just because of the way you competed and the way you put the team first. You throw the interception, and a lot of guys would have been over there kicking the dirt. And you went and made the tackle. We ended up getting the ball back. You competed for 60 minutes against a quality defensive football team, and because of that, we won the game.'"

"The week after Oklahoma, I let myself go," McCoy said. "Forget about everything. I walked up to Coach [Mack] Brown and Coach Davis and said, 'As far as I'm concerned, we're 0-0. This is going to be my first game. I'm starting over completely.'

"I've been so much better since," McCoy said. "I can feel my teammates following me, responding to me, and I'm feeling confident."

In the past five games, McCoy completed 77 percent of his passes for 1,487 yards and 12 touchdowns and threw only two interceptions. Again, aainst Kansas on Saturday night, McCoy threw for 396 yards and four touchdowns.

So, what happened?

"He relaxed," Davis said.

Excerpts from ESPN.com, November 23, 2009.

For more on peak performance and mental conditioning, click on The Handbook of Peak Performance.