“I have always maintained that in basketball the importance of the mental to the physical is about four to one.” – Bobby Knight

Basketball mental toughness is what separates the great athletes from the average athletes, the men from the boys and the women from the girls. Now, that statement might sound a bit gung-ho to some but let’s break down a few things further purely in terms of sports psychology for basketball and see if it makes sense.

For starters, let us eliminate an athlete’s physical attributes (e.g. strength, technique, stamina, pace, etc.). Most, if not all, athletes are aware that consistently practicing on their physical attributes will eventually improve these physical skills on the court. Furthermore, the methods used to increase physical attributes are mostly common knowledge and commonly available nowadays.

Our minds however tend to be shaped by our past experiences and our mind-set is moulded by the way we choose to either act or react to any similar situation in the future.

An athlete’s experiences on the court are not that dissimilar. Every athlete experiences the highs and the lows in their mental game. Basketball situations, emotions and scenarios are the same across the world.

All athletes compete, strive for success, fail, succeed, win, lose, have good games, have bad games, make mistakes, fear making mistakes, etc. These experiences are the same no matter what age an athlete is or what level they are competing at.

The athlete that has a strong mental mind-set knows that it is in their benefit to focus on such things as positive execution, setting progress goals and striving for success no matter what the situation, emotion or scenario. They also know that worrying about mistakes, losing, outcomes, avoiding failure and pain, fear, etc. are all counterproductive to their cause.

When an athlete focuses on the “wrong” things they only end up worrying, playing too cautiously, focusing on what they don’t want to happen (e.g. I will not take the open shot because I don’t want to miss it) and becoming tense, indecisive, performing tentatively in the process.

These athletes’ weaker mind-set mentally blocks their body from achieving optimum performance by not allowing the flow and the execution of their skills in a manner that they are capable of and have trained so hard to do.

By continuing to focus on the “wrong” things an athlete is effectively training and teaching their mind what the priority is and the mind will divert its “processing power” to achieve those goals.

The reason this type of mind-set is referred to as “weak” is because it is working against an athlete’s true goals and will only hold them back from the very thing that they want the most … SUCCESS.

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