From the book "Knight: My Story," with Bob Hammel, Coach Bob Knight talks about the approach a coach should have with his/her team going
into games. At LSU, we've always referred to this as "middle of the
road" coaching. Keeping our team on an even keel. We don't want them "to
up" for so-called big games, or "not up" for games that the ordinary
fan doesn't deem as a big game. It is absolutely not about the score or
the outcome. This is one of the things we've learned from Coach Knight
and later emphasized from Coach Nick Saban. It's not the result -- it's
the process. When you get your team worried about the process...the
fundamental execution of each possession --then the results will take
care of themselves.
Here is what Coach Knight says in this regard:
Kids have to understand that you
-- you, the coach -- arent' going to be satisfied with just winning.
Play can be sloppy, things can be poorly executed in games you win, but
before you can be good and beat better teams, that kind of play has to
be straightened out and eliminated. Kids will be satisfied with what you
tolerate. If a coach tolerates mistakes, kids will be satisfied with
mistakes.
There have been times I was more upset after we won than when we lost.
The
most essential thing in a team's being ready for a game is that the
coach is ready -- that the coach understands the importance of keeping
everything on an even keel. Kids react in very, very funny ways to
things that are said. From just the inflection in the coach's voice,
they can pick up, "This game isn't very important," or "This game is
important."
If
you're a pretty good team, you're going to play some teams that aren't
nearly as good as you are. When that happened, I tried to be honest. I'd
tell my players: "Hey, unless you guys just decide to go out and do
nothing, there's no way we should lose this game. This is a game that's
going to be determined by your attitude."
You
can't make every game out like it's the national championship game. But
over the course of a season you've got to develop a sense of pride in
performance. Winning isn't just enough.
Winning
is the last of all criteria that I think you should use to determine
how well you're playing. When the way you've won a game just isn't good
enough, you show your players why: you talk about turnovers, missed
blockouts, fast-break points allowed, fouls committed -- to show your
team, "We just didn't play well."
You're trying to get players to understand that how they play is a hell of a lot more important than whether or not they win.