"Don't whine, don't complain, don't make excuses." - John Wooden
Excuses travel with 'attribution bias'. When life goes well, we take credit. When plans go south, we blame outside forces.
"The referees changed the game." (How often do the officials care about the outcome?)
"Our best two players had the flu." (Injuries and illness are part of the game.)
"The lighting in that gym is disgraceful." (Both teams face the same conditions.)
"This is a rebuilding year." (Set low expectations?)
"Everyone does it." (Justify recruiting violations by consensus behavior.)
Urban Meyer discusses excuses in Above the Line. He includes 'blame, complain, defend' as below the line behaviors. He describes "above the line" behavior as intentional and the inverse as DEFAULT actions. Good process is purposeful.
Student-athletes tend to take easier courses than their college peers. Most still care about academics. The time burden places them at a competitive disadvantage.
The NCAA 20 hour rule excludes critical training (above).
The result...legitimate excuses for academic underachievement...
Badgering in Wisconsin? A common coaching excuse condemns lack of institutional support. "As sure as tulips popping up from the ground or robins flying into bird feeders, basketball coaches are annually falling by the wayside once the calendar turns to April and May." Programs change coaches as easily as changing shirts. "This spring, like so many others before it, the petty bickering of disgruntled parents and the lack of support from administrators, has cost some truly stellar coaches their jobs." The coaching carousel spawned a book on getting and surviving the experience, "The Best-Laid Plans of a High School Basketball CEO."
Got clay feet? I do. In a developmental program, equalizing playing time affects the bottom line. Playing exclusively man-to-man defense bother some observers. Devote practice to fundamentals or zone offense? We choose the former. Maybe excusable, but still excuses.
Lagniappe:
1) Don't turn over the ball on handoffs...platter
2) Wide focus...see the whole floor
Great example of “five-man game” and “seeing the whole board” in ball screen offense. Brewer commits to roller. Rubio FINDS the advantage with diagonal pass. #findusecreate pic.twitter.com/atIOQJTc9t— Radius Athletics (@RadiusAthletics) April 22, 2018