Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Bill Self and I don’t have too much in common. He’s wealthy, I’m not. He was a star basketball player in his younger years; I was a star debater. He has a borderline obsession with rebounding and team defense, whereas I obsess over ... other stuff.
But all those distinctions are unimportant compared to the disparity in our respective motivational abilities.
Self crafts athletically gifted young men into well-rounded student athletes.
I get out of bed in the morning.
Self has led four teams to Elite Eight berths.
I came really close to reading a book last night.
Self has a national championship and the highest winning percentage in all of college basketball since arriving in Lawrence.
And that’s a good thing, because Self will need all of his motivational talents tonight.
You read that right. Bill Self has a difficult task on his hands. He has to convince his young team that they aren’t guaranteed a victory. He has to convince them that merely showing up won’t be good enough, and that Iowa State could win if the Jayhawks lay an egg.
It sounds easy. How hard can it be to get players fired up to take the court at Allen Fieldhouse? How hard can it be to convince them that every game is a must-win when a conference championship is at stake? It may sound easy, but if it were, the Bill Selfs of the world wouldn’t make the money they do.
After all, there are plenty of reasons why teenagers and 20-somethings would overlook Iowa State. First of all, the game is at Allen Fieldhouse, which has been an impregnable fortress since Acie Law willed his Texas A&M Aggies to victory 37 games ago. Surely Iowa State couldn’t be the team to end that streak.
Not the same Iowa State that sits near the bottom of the Big 12 with a 2-8 conference record.
Not when Craig Brackins’ 42-point explosion wasn’t enough to notch a victory in Ames. Not when Hilton Magic was made to look more like a hoax less than a month ago.
As if that wasn’t enough, the game is slotted anonymously on a Wednesday evening. A Wednesday evening that just so happens to take place during the week after Kansas traveled to Columbia and Manhattan, and the week before it travels to Norman.
There is substantial wreckage in the rearview mirror and a titanic obstacle looming in the middle of the road. Kansas’ young players could hardly be faulted for overlooking the speed bump that Iowa State represents.
This is where Self comes in to the picture. Big coaches are paid big money at big programs to win big games, no doubt about it. But even the most loyal fans grow weary of their teams falling victim to upsets. Sure, fans and boosters love beating ranked teams.
But it’s even better to be one of those ranked teams. In order to do that, you have to take care of business on nights where you’d rather just stay home.
Perhaps more than anything else, Self has shown he can motivate his teams to do just that.
— — Edited by Carly Halvorson
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