Fear is Good

I'm nervous about the Georgetown game tomorrow. It's tough to beat your rival three times in the same season. Georgetown could come out trying to get SU in foul trouble like the last game when the Hoyas almost stole a win late.

Plus, there is the stink of the Louisville game on the Orange. Has Pitino figured out a way to beat Syracuse? Toss up 40 threes and crash the boards? Georgetown is a much better 3-pt shooting team than Louisville (.388 to .334). The good news is Georgetown is the worst offensive rebounding team in the conference, at 9.6 rpg. Hopefully the Hoyas will shoot and miss. Hopefully.

Gone is the confidence I had - and the whole city had - less than a week ago. Gone is the swagger of being #1. As I type this, Cincinnati is finishing off Louisville in the Garden. Cincy! The NIT-bound Bearcats beat the team that just beat the Orange! Ugh. Syracuse is vulnerable. Syracuse can be beat.

Then again, anybody can be beat. There is no superpower in college basketball. Plenty of teams could beat even mighty Kansas if the Jayhawks merely bring their B-game to a neutral court. That is the reality of 2010, and the reality of March Madness almost every year. Last week was fun, but whether or not SU really is the best team in the country, Orange nation was fooling itself. We are vulnerable. We can be beat.

Fear is good. My dad always argues that Boeheim teams play better as underdogs. That's his explanation for this season; it had to be a team unranked at the start of the year to break a two-decade drought and crack #1 in the polls. Perhaps that's why Syracuse was #1 in the 87-88 preseason poll... and never again that season. Perhaps that's why Boeheim won the championship with a 3-seed in a tournament with 15 or more teams that could've been the one to get hot and win it all.

I didn't really buy into the claims that those earlier losses were somehow good for the Orange. This time, though, I think the humbling loss at Louisville came at just the right moment. I think Wes, Rautins, Uncle Aku and the rest of the guys now remember that they can lose if they play poorly. They have a reason be afraid.

For a long time I heard a lot of athletes claim that fear was their biggest motivation to improve - fear of personal failure, fear of defeat - without really understanding what they meant. It always sounded like they were fooling themselves. They were at the height of their sport, playing games for millions of dollars, or at least for the adoration of their college's community. What did they really have to fear?

Then I started my PhD. For the first time in my life, I found school challenging. (I don't mean to sound arrogant. Bear with me, I'm making a point. I was always good at school, tests, papers, and whatnot. But whatever. I'm sure you're better than me at lots of things that are much more important in the grand scheme of things than school. For example, I live in my parents' basement. Feel better? Good.) I found myself surrounded with people who seemed to be grasping historical concepts and theories better than I was. I began to doubt whether I was smart enough to get a history PhD. Unfortunately, I didn't have any better career ideas at the moment. And I was already living in my parents' basement. That's when I decided to keep on truckin'. I even made "keep on truckin'" my New Year's Resolution for 2009.

More specifically, I got to work. I read the assignments - hundreds and hundreds of pages a week. Some of the stuff was interesting and, occasionally, entertaining. But my biggest motivation was that I didn't want to look like an idiot in class, in front of my peers and my professors. And that's when I finally started to understand how fear motivates. I also started to see it in the discussion sections I was TA'ing. My students almost never speak up unless they are CERTAIN what they are saying is correct. No one likes to be wrong in front of a group. I've learned to both try to use that fear to get them to work, and to try to minimize that fear by being super-nice and encouraging when they say something stupid.

On Saturday Syracuse was beaten on national television. There is a very good chance that if you and I are afraid about this Georgetown game, they are too. You know what Georgetown fans are thinking? "I wish SU hadn't lost to Louisville because they're too good to lose two in a row." You know what Georgetown players might be thinking? "We've lost to SU twice. I'm not sure we can beat these guys." That's doubt. Doubt is different from fear. Doubt is bad and distracting. Fear is truth. Fear motivates. Fear is good.

OK, OK... so my brilliant analysis has convinced you its good for the Orange. But what about you and me? We can't use this fear for motivation! Well, here's two things that might help:

1. The Kryptonite theory: Louisville seems to be Kryptonite to the 2009-10 Orange just like UConn was Kryptonite to the 2002-03 Orange. It's extremely possible SU is kryptonite to the 2009-10 Georgetown. Moreover, Georgetown is not a great basketball team. If SU is just a little Kryptonite-y for the Hoyas, the Orange will be fine. Plus, the game is in the Garden! We love the Garden! We're probably not going to lose.

2. What if we do lose? Sure, the 2-game losing streak into the tourney is a bummer. But SU isn't going to lose in the first round, so the winning will pick right back up. Will the Orange lose the 1-seed? I've stared at the numbers, and I think the 1-seed is just about locked up. The only strike against SU would be the 2-game losing streak to end the season. In all other categories, SU will have an edge over everyone besides Kansas and Kentucky.

And even if the Orange does fall to a 2-seed... does it really matter? It might even be better. SU will be that much further below the radar, just where Boeheim likes to be. At their best, the Orange can beat anyone. Maybe the fear as a 2-seed will help them play their best.