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SignUp Now!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.
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.
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.
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.
No idea how you guys function while not watching. I’m way more stressed if i don’t.
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.No idea how you guys function while not watching. I’m way more stressed if i don’t.