Behavioral Psychology Explains Why Kentucky Won’t Win the National Title If They Lose a Game

“It’s like a finger pointing at the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or else you’ll miss all that heavenly glory.” –Bruce Lee

I don’t like Kentucky. I don’t trust Calipari. But if they go into the tournament undefeated, I will want to see them win their next six games, raise the National Championship trophy, and make the Bluegrass state smile. And not because they’re in the SEC but because I enjoy rare, high level accomplishments, regardless of who’s achieving it. And if we pay attention, John Calipari’s interviews illustrate how to arrive at success more often.

A group of children sat in a classroom, unaware that they were being studied by behavioral psychologists. Even if they were, their minds were temporarily distracted by the easy math problems upon which they eagerly scribbled their answers. The experiment really began when they were given more difficult ones. None of the children got the problems right. But something happened next: they were again given easy problems. One group of students completed the problems easily while another group was so distracted by their inability to solve the difficult problems that they had trouble completing the once easy task before them.

Dr. Carol Dweck is a leading researcher in developmental psychology. She talks about how these two types of learners: incremental and entity. The former views learning as a process, a constantly evolving growth of mind and intelligence. The latter views learning as a result, something you’ve achieved. Essentially, entity learners do well as long as they’re succeeding. Their identity is so tied into results that when they come up short, they don’t bounce back as well. Part of long-term winning involves learning from losses.

It’s like the fastest kid in class racing the new guy and losing. If he comes back the next day wanting to race again, it reflects an incremental thought process. But if he slows up before the race is even over, claiming he wasn’t trying, then that kid is an entity thinker who will likely only race guys he knows he can beat.

College coaches are highly paid, highly specialized college professors, so they know that learning is like water cupped in your hands—you may have it. But that possession is precarious. On some level, it’s easy to hold, but then again, it’s easy to lose. And a coach’s wins are based, in part, on the ability to teach. And winning, like learning or power or love or faith, is an abstract concept that you must work to grasp and work to keep or else it can slip quickly through your fingers. Incremental thinkers intuitively understand this, which is why they, in general, succeed more than entity thinkers.

This is why Calipari makes such a big deal about defensive lapses after clear blowouts. Staying focused on process when results are so prominent is difficult. What’s harder? Keeping others focused on it. And Calipari’s not alone. The most famous Vince Lombardi quote is “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Yet let’s not forget that he could talk about the Green Bay power sweep for 8 hours. That means he could start talking about this one play while someone clocks into work. And after that person has played on Facebook, watched YouTube videos, went to lunch, came back, did two hours of real work before clocking out, Lombardi would just be finishing up his discussion—about one play. The length of time is probably apocryphal, but the message is clear: Lombardi valued process. You see this same thread of thought in any of Phil Jackson’s books.

Obviously, I don’t know what kind of learners the individual Kentucky players are, but we have enough seasons of background to know that collectively, teams who earn 1 loss late in the season falter worse than undefeated teams. It’s difficult to mark exactly where teams pass that point of no return, but if you’re at 26-0, you’re definitely there. Whether they realize it or not, Kentucky is now a group of entity learners tied to the accomplishment of going undefeated. And Calipari’s job is to keep them more incremental than entity, to keep them focused, not on winning, but on doing the things that produce winning.

Now, the counterpoint to my construct is that each win breeds confidence, and that sense of self creates the habit of winning. There’s power in expecting to win; it’s hard to quantify, but we know it’s there. The “pressure” of maintaining a streak is only a factor if a team doesn’t really expect to be where they’re at. A team like Kentucky with top recruits at a legendary program would feel that pressure less than say an undefeated Tennessee team that doesn’t have a legendary basketball legacy and doesn’t have the best players clamoring to play for it. For Kentucky, each win creates more momentum than tension.

I watch sports to see my teams win, but I also watch to see history. My high school principal was an assistant coach on the undefeated ’76 Indiana team. I wasn’t alive to see that. But I’m alive for this. By default, Kentucky is, on some level, an entity team, but are they more incremental? I don’t want to find out because finding out means they’ll lose before getting to the tournament. Some things you just don’t want to learn.