By: Jeremy Shyatt, Asst. Coach - North Florida
You got to love late January and early February in any college basketball season. Everyone has a few more aches and pains that they didn't have early in the year. Each game is a "must win" or ever so critical to putting yourself in position for the post season, yet it seems every day can be like pulling teeth with your guys to keep their energy levels up. As Allen Iverson so eloquently put it, "You're talking about practice?"
Coaches will do anything to get an edge as far as the mental game goes. From keeping guys in similar routines, to visual tactics, to team building exercises, everyone will agree that this is the toughest part of the season.
One thing we like to do on occasion is a some type of motivational video with a theme that we may show the guys right before we take the floor for the last time. From highlights of themselves, to movie clips, to a particular song, anything we can show them to get them extra focused or excited would help our cause!!
Our thoughts are that you can't show them videos like this before every game, because then they lose their luster and importance. And there are some games (like against Jacksonville, our city rival), you probably don't need a video because the guys are so jacked up anyways, you actually need to calm them down and refocus them.
With a goal of about 5 or 6 during the year, we have shown 4 thus far...currently our record stands 3-1 when we show them...
"Have You Forgotten"
-Clips of preseason conditioning complete with sprints, weights, beach workouts, and yes, even vomiting coinciding with Fort Minor's "Remember the Name" to remind the guys of all the hard work they had put in at the beginning of the season/boot camp to get them ready for the present.
"Where Championships Happen"
-Video starts with scenes from the movie "300" showing the importance of defending your home turf at all costs. I also included still photos of our guys with captions along the same theme of the NBA "Where Caring Happens" to the music of the movie of "Last of the Mohicans." We showed this before our first conference home game to remind the guys that the road to the championship started that night.
"Our Time"
-Clips of our guys to the Eminem song "One Shot" that we used before we played Belmont. Belmont is a team that is rich in tradition and has represented the league well in post-season play. We wanted to let our guys know that it was now our time to step up and begin to write our own legacy.
"The Fight"
-Going into the USC-Upstate game, we knew it was going to be a fight. They are a team with not the best record, but seem to be in every single game, both winning and losing in an ugly manner, but always fighting until the final horn. We used clips from "Rocky IV" as well as music from Rocky/Notorious BIG "Victory" to try and get the point across to the guys it was going to be a fight to the end.
-You are welcome to go to our Youtube page here to view all of these videos.
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