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Duke Coaching

It's unfortunate that this is binary. Izzo's 1-11 record vs. K, or whatever it is, counts the same as K being 0-1 against someone. Makes him not look like the sad waste of flesh that he is.
 
rome8180 said:
In retrospect, there have been a ton of games I didn't watch over since 2014. Part of it is life stuff, but part of it is that basketball mostly stresses me out and makes me unhappy now. I spent all but the last two minutes of yesterday's game in a rage. We won by 16 and were never in any real danger of losing.
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This is me, except I take it to an entirely different level - I don't watch the games live anymore. I [very, very, very nervously] check the final score. If we win, I go back and watch. If we lose I erase it from DVR. It's helped, I think. I stopped watching games live probably 8-10ish years ago. I reached peak levels of madness in college (put my fist through my glass coffee table when the refs raped us in the Final Four against UCONN, broke a couple chairs, remotes, art, etc.) and knew I needed to find a way to dial it back. Knew that the only possible remedy was to stop watching live, really.

(A totally unnecessary, but somewhat related, sidebar:) I just finished my eighth season, third as head coach, coaching high school ball here in Durham. When I accepted the head job I was extremely worried about how I would handle losses and not being able to run from the action (not that you can as assistant, either, but at least easier to separate yourself from responsibility of losing in some ways) when shit wasn't going our way. Oddly enough, I really think it's helped. I've watched three games live this season (the most in many years), including the GT game in Cameron. I've passed on so many tickets through the years, for a variety of reasons, coaching schedule among them, but many times because watching live grinds me down and makes me a bad person and I'm afraid of showing that in public. GT was hard enough when we struggled that first half. I was with my [pregnant at the time] wife and told her if we didn't turn it around I'd be leaving and she could make a decision what she wanted to do. Luckily Duke got it together and we stayed til the end.

I say this with all sincerity - I genuinely dread college basketball season because of how much it stresses me out and how I handle wins and losses (not only Duke's, UNC's of course, too). The bad times linger in me way too long, way longer than the highs of winning. Another coping mechanism for me, and I've only done this this season, is to bet against Duke in games when I genuinely think they might lose. I figure that way if Duke loses at least I got something out of it and it helps me cope with the feeling a little better (and FTR, I have NEVER once, and NEVER will cheer for Duke to lose to win a bet - I'm always, ALWAYS hoping to lose those bets).

I'm generally pretty pessimistic about all teams I cheer for and have been rightfully known as such on the boards for years, but feel as good about this team as any I can remember. Hard not to given Zion.

Apologies for the length of this post. I feel like this has been therapeutic for me. :tearsofjoy:


TL;DR - I hate basketball season, it stresses me the fuck out and makes me an awful person, I don't watch Duke games live anymore and bet against Duke so I can at least feel not as bad when they lose.
 
I'll watch the UNC game and tournament games live. The only other games I watch live are if my wife and kids are out of town. Last season, I even skipped watching the Duke/UNC ACCT game because my wife and I were on a little weekend getaway. Figured I would watch after she went to sleep if Duke won. Checked the score and saw Duke lost, was bummed for a few minutes, and then went back to enjoying my evening. Knowing the outcomes does take the thrill out of the games, for sure, but I'm adult enough to admit I'm a child watching Duke games live. Why put myself and especially my family through that?
 
Weirdly, I've actually found that watching games in person is easier than on TV. Maybe it's because you see the reality -- that these are just a bunch of kids in shorts running up and down a wood floor. Or maybe it has something to do with not having announcers telling you "Duke's got a lot of work to do to come back in this one" or something. Or maybe I'm just more wrapped up in my actual environment.
 
Not that I get to go to a bunch of live games or anything. There was a brief period in my life when I did (due to the father of someone I was dating) and unfortunately that coincided with the 2012 season.
 
I gave up my tickets in part because I was acting like an animal at the games. When we got killed by UNC at Cameron in 2012, I almost got in a fight with a UNC fan sitting behind me. While I do regret a bit giving them up this year with Zion (instead of next when we suck), I've become much better at shrugging off losses watching at home. I have my computer, I get to see how miserable all you fuckers are and it makes the losses much easier to take.
 
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dukebluedevils05 said:
rome8180 said:
In retrospect, there have been a ton of games I didn't watch over since 2014. Part of it is life stuff, but part of it is that basketball mostly stresses me out and makes me unhappy now. I spent all but the last two minutes of yesterday's game in a rage. We won by 16 and were never in any real danger of losing.
Click to expand...

This is me, except I take it to an entirely different level - I don't watch the games live anymore. I [very, very, very nervously] check the final score. If we win, I go back and watch. If we lose I erase it from DVR. It's helped, I think. I stopped watching games live probably 8-10ish years ago. I reached peak levels of madness in college (put my fist through my glass coffee table when the refs raped us in the Final Four against UCONN, broke a couple chairs, remotes, art, etc.) and knew I needed to find a way to dial it back. Knew that the only possible remedy was to stop watching live, really.

(A totally unnecessary, but somewhat related, sidebar:) I just finished my eighth season, third as head coach, coaching high school ball here in Durham. When I accepted the head job I was extremely worried about how I would handle losses and not being able to run from the action (not that you can as assistant, either, but at least easier to separate yourself from responsibility of losing in some ways) when shit wasn't going our way. Oddly enough, I really think it's helped. I've watched three games live this season (the most in many years), including the GT game in Cameron. I've passed on so many tickets through the years, for a variety of reasons, coaching schedule among them, but many times because watching live grinds me down and makes me a bad person and I'm afraid of showing that in public. GT was hard enough when we struggled that first half. I was with my [pregnant at the time] wife and told her if we didn't turn it around I'd be leaving and she could make a decision what she wanted to do. Luckily Duke got it together and we stayed til the end.

I say this with all sincerity - I genuinely dread college basketball season because of how much it stresses me out and how I handle wins and losses (not only Duke's, UNC's of course, too). The bad times linger in me way too long, way longer than the highs of winning. Another coping mechanism for me, and I've only done this this season, is to bet against Duke in games when I genuinely think they might lose. I figure that way if Duke loses at least I got something out of it and it helps me cope with the feeling a little better (and FTR, I have NEVER once, and NEVER will cheer for Duke to lose to win a bet - I'm always, ALWAYS hoping to lose those bets).

I'm generally pretty pessimistic about all teams I cheer for and have been rightfully known as such on the boards for years, but feel as good about this team as any I can remember. Hard not to given Zion.

Apologies for the length of this post. I feel like this has been therapeutic for me. :tearsofjoy:


TL;DR - I hate basketball season, it stresses me the fuck out and makes me an awful person, I don't watch Duke games live anymore and bet against Duke so I can at least feel not as bad when they lose.
Click to expand...

I am now 23 and have been a high school head coach for my 2nd season now. When I was younger I was absolutely crazy while watching Duke games. I was fucking yelling at the TV, standing up just a couple of feet away from the TV. It was so bad. I think I was 17 when we lost to Mercer and I straight up punched a hole in my bedroom wall...after that I realized I'm fucked up mentally and need to relax.

It's been much better since, but between 2015-2017 I was still on edge a lot. Like I would watch games and get mad really quickly but I learned to just internalize it instead of being publicly upset, but if we lost it would still have a similar impact because if we lost I wouldn't be able to go to bed until 2-3am regardless of the day because I would just be venting on TDD or wherever online and I would be so mad I wouldn't talk to anyone for a couple of hours. I could only watch games by myself because it was honestly embarrassing to watch games with other people while I just sat there saying nothing but looking like I was going to explode and put everyone in the room through a meat grinder.

Once I get accepted to be a head coach which was last season, I began enjoying Duke basketball much more because it forced me to stop caring less. I naturally watch less games because sometimes my games conflict, or I'm too busy watching film or preparing scouting reports/practice plans. I still watch a good amount of games but I'll skip games like Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Boston College. The only "bad" games I'll watch are within like the first 10 games simply because I want to see the team and get used to the new players an how we are playing.

I also view Duke basketball now as a way to bring down my stress levels, and to "get away" and have some fun watching basketball. I spend so much time breaking down film, analyzing my team and dealing with the day to day issues, and it's grinding- I enjoy it but it's a long grind over the season. Duke basketball becomes an outlet now where I just watch basketball purely as a fan while not over analyzing everything and overthinking it. I just sit there with my feet up laughing my ass off in the chat. I wasn't even mad during the Gonzaga loss. Didn't watch Syracuse, i had a game. The last time I got upset was when we lost to Kansas, but I got over it in 30 minutes. The UNC games and the NCAA Tournament games are the only games which really get me semi like I used to.
 
^With you on all accounts. Good post. I know the feeling. Good luck to you as you finish up your season.

krsmith16 said:
No idea how you guys function while not watching. I’m way more stressed if i don’t.
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It's not fun, for sure. I used to always put my phone on airplane mode during games so nobody could get in touch with me during games. Now I just have mute the people that I know will text me with something related to the game so I don't get myself invested and wanting to check the score. My big group text with Duke buddies is permanently muted. The second I see the score I know I'll just keep going back to check every couple minutes and at that point I might as well just watch.

I've got so many stories, some hilarious, of checking the score once I know the game's got to be over. The Louisville game last week was entertaining. The UNC National Championship loss to Villanova was a good one.

I'll be a nervous fucking wreck when I get ready to check on Wednesday night. I get pretty superstitious about where I go to see the score.
 
krsmith16 said:
No idea how you guys function while not watching. I’m way more stressed if i don’t.
Click to expand...
You have to keep yourself occupied. Pretty easy to do with kids really. And like dbd05 said, put your phone away (something I need to do much more of anyway) so you’re not even tempted to check the score during the game. Once you check the score, you’ll go back over and over to check the gamecast. And you might as well turn the game on at that point.

I try not to check the score at all if I can. I’ll look at a site to check Duke’s W-L record to see if they won. At least that way there’s some unknown about how things will go when I watch later. Sometimes I’ll get on TDF chat and ask if the game is worth watching, so I don’t waste my time watching something like a shit 8-pt home win vs Pitt.
 
Could've swore that some posters here pulled the 'do you even watch the games?' card last year when I was defending Trent, turns out that I am one of the few who do...
 
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