Like High School All Over

The basketball league I'm playing in at work isn't going too well for my team. 1st off, I think our team's chemistry really sucks. There's a lot of complainers, and it comes mostly from people who deserve the complaints just as much as anyone else.

There is something psychologically wrong with me. This is the only explanation I have to excuse my poor shooting this season. I've played in tons of pickup games where I've been just as good a shooter as anyone else on the floor. I'll even drive the ball to the hoop (something I never did in high school). During warm ups, I can drain 3 pointers like they were the cure to a horrible disease I've contracted.

But throw up a scoreboard and pull out the stat sheets, and my confidence takes a dive and suddenly I can't make an open shot.

All season long I've been able to counter that by being our team's best defender (yeah, I'm tooting my horn here, but it's true). I tend to pick up their best guards, and I've done a good job keeping them from getting the ball, or staying in front of them so that they don't really have a shot when the do have it. I've also done well handling the ball and making smart passes.

Yesterday, though, my confidence was really shaken. Despite inflating my ego by hitting nearly all my warm up shots (and I took a lot) the 3 missed shots I took were so off I didn't bother looking for another. My defense was okay at best, and I certainly wasn't the only one who let a few 3's go over my head, but it was the bad passes I made that really had me questioning whether I deserved to be on the court. It was High School all over again.

When I play the pickup games, or the one on one games with buddies, I'm out there to have fun and I'm relaxed...When it's an organized game with officials and scorekeepers on the clock, I'm nervous about the game all day long...I KNOW this is the reason I'm playing poorly. I'm too wound up and worried about not playing well. When it's a pickup game or one on one, I'm relaxed and don't care about the outcome and so my shots fall and I'm more aggressive...But I cannot get myself to feel the same about these league games...Cannot figure it out.