June 18, 2021   |   Tagged Motivation

How to improve your Toughness on the Basketball Court

Defining Toughness

True toughness is a choice of the will and can give you power to improve your game. Often basketball players mistake toughness for having the ability to physically beat up another player when really toughness has nothing to do with physical strength. True toughness is intangible, it is the ability to handle difficult situations by using past experiences and the learned skills you have. It is the idea that doing the little things most players overlook will make you tough. The great thing about toughness is that just like talent, it can grow, you are not born tough it is something that is learned over time and can be improved upon. Having true toughness as a player will take your game to the next level and give you the advantage in tough situations on and off the court that most people do not have.

One way to gaining and improving your toughness is by following a model created by Jay Bilas, former Duke University basketball player and current ESPN College Basketball analyst. His model has 10 concepts that when truly understood will give you the toughness that all the great players all have.

1. Trust: This is the idea of belief, the belief in yourself, your team, and your team goals. No player can be tough alone, especially when facing adversity. So trusting in your support system will give you that strength to face any challenge and make you truly tough.
2. Preparation: Being prepared for any situation will lead to confidence and ultimately allow you to perform at your highest level. Gaining toughness through preparation means concentrating on the task at hand, treating each situation as important as the last, and setting goals to watch yourself succeed.
3. Courage: This concept refers to facing your fears and doubts head on, not shying away from anything. Being tough is having the courage to accept failure and become stronger because of it. True toughness is having the courage to deal with what comes from both winning and losing.
4. Communication: The communication part of this model is all about being accountable. Being accountable to yourself, your team, and for your actions. Toughness from communication is the ability to have strong positive relationships with the people on your team and for every player to be held accountable.
5. Persistence: This is the ability for a player to continue through any situation without giving up. As an athlete adversity is inevitable but giving up because of it is a choice and by deciding to deal with the adversity rather than give up is where true toughness is gained. Persistence is the idea of pushing your limits; adversity will cause you to fall out of your comfort zone. But Dealing with the situation and ultimately going above and beyond will create true toughness.
6. Next Play: True toughness comes from a next play mentality, this mentality is the concept of moving forward from situations especially the negatives ones. The past only distracts and by focusing on something you cannot change you are only hurting yourself. The only thing to do is to learn from it and make sure it is not repeated.
7. Commitment: A quote from Tommy Amaker (Harvard Head Basketball coach) perfectly sums up commitment, “Do not mistake routine for commitment.” Commitment is the idea of doing what ever it takes to succeed, selling yourself by buying into the system. Players do not become tough by just getting through things, they do it by committing hole heartedly through both mind and body.
8. Acceptance: This quote gives the perfect explanation for acceptance. “Every player on a team is a role player, and every player on a team should strive to excel at what I consider to be the most important role of all: the role of being a great teammate.” – Jay Bilas
9. Resilience: This concept really coincides with intelligence, everyone faces tough challenges in life and basketball but not all challenges are worth fighting. Having the intelligence to know what issues are worth using your resilience for is a great measure for true toughness. The ability to fight back to adversity and tough challenges is the epitome for being tough
10. Self – Evaluation: This concept is one of the most important and one of the most difficult of the model. This concept refers to the responsibility of a person to look in the mirror and with a clear eyes and an un-bias mind evaluate oneself. Evaluate yourself based on the facts if you are doing things to make yourself better and the people around you better. When you can truthfully answer both questions with a yes, you are truly tough.

Understanding this model will add an element to your game that very few players have. All of these concepts apply not only to basketball but to life as well and being truly tough is something that will help on and off the court.

About NBC Basketball
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