You can't come to practice pouting

Bo Ryan on staying consistent as a player and coach:

"I just want our players to be as consistent in their work ethic and how they take care of the ball and the little things that we talk about all the time to give yourself a chance," said Ryan, whose team hasn't suffered back-to-back losses since the 2008-'09 season. "I don't dwell on the loss.....

"People that come to our practices, you have no idea what happened the game before and there is a purpose to that. I've always been like that. I tried to be like that as a player because I was told by my coach if things didn't go well. . . you can't go to practice pouting. It doesn't help anything."

Cliff Lee's Mindset

Rangers pitcher Cliff Lee struck out 13 Yankee hitters over 8 innings Monday night to give Texas a 2-1 series advantage. This quote sums up Lee's maturity and mindset. Most people would be satisfied with their performance and get 'fat' on their accomplishments, not Lee:

"I don't really look too far in the past or too far in the future," Lee said Monday night. "I look at what I can do today to prepare for tomorrow, and so forth. Most of the time, it's just to go out and have fun and execute pitches."

Gill remains on even keel despite KU’s ups, downs

Good article in the Lincoln Journal Star about Kansas coach Turner Gill and his mindset of staying even keel. After losing to I-AA North Dakota State in game 1 and then beating #17 ranked Georgia Tech the following week, Gill is stressing that his players and coaches stay focused on what is ahead:

"We're trying to build over a whole football season. We're not letting one or two games, or three or four games, define who we are at this point in time. The main thing is we've got to get our guys to handle prosperity, and that's part of the process of the teaching of us as coaches to players, and players to players," Gill said.

One player who Gill stuck with was junior tight end Tim Biere. Against North Dakota State, the Omaha Westside graduate fumbled twice and dropped two passes. But Saturday, he made his first touchdown reception and played an important role in helping Sims hit the century mark.

"We just said one thing to him and then we moved on," Gill said in regard to Biere's opening-game performance. "We're trying to teach our staff and players that we're not going to spend a whole lot of time on negative things. We'll get it corrected and then we'll move on. That's what he did, and I'm proud of him."

Start a new streak

Read a good story on new Memphis head coach Josh Pastner and the difficulty of taking over a program with such high expectations due to the success of former coach John Callipari. Memphis recently had their 64 game conference winning streak snapped. Coach Pastner offers tremendous perspective on what a loss in basketball means:

The loss left the seniors in tears after the game, and when Pastner noticed them moping around in practice the next day, he brought them in for a pep talk.

"For crying out loud, there's no reason to be so depressed," said Pastner, who unlike Calipari and just about every other coach in America does not use profanity. "We just lost a game. Do I need to take you over to St. Jude's [Hospital]? No doctor called to say you're sick or that you're dying. We lost a game, that's all. Let's start another streak."

Handling Adversity

Peyton Manning had a good quote yesterday talking about the Colts mindset after being down 17-0. The Colts came back to win by 8. Said Manning:

"We don't get overexcited certainly when things aren't going the way we want them to. We don't panic, we don't yell, we don't throw helmets. We just try to put the series behind us and move on to the next one. There was a lot of that today."

NU's Lee has a ball, just keeps rolling

Ron Brown calls it “rubber ball resiliency.”

“When you squeeze it, it pops back into shape,” the Nebraska tight ends coach said.

Consider Saturday to be Zac Lee's rubber ball bounce back.

The NU junior quarterback, fresh off the worst performance of his young career, rebounded with a sharp outing Saturday during Nebraska's 55-0 victory over Louisiana-Lafayette.

It was light years from his 11 of 30 and two-interception showing against Virginia Tech. His 238 yards on 15 of 18 passes tell part of the story. The way he handled himself in getting from one Saturday to the next tells another part.

“The thing about Zac is that he's got so much resiliency,” Brown said. “He has a tendency to not let things get to him.”

Lee said he did almost everything the same this week, other than maybe a little more film work. After two NU wins in which he amassed 553 passing yards and six scores, the struggles at Virginia Tech were a reality check.

He said during the week he just “focused on ball,” while trying to move on and have a short memory.

“Mistakes are going to happen. Bad things are going to happen,” Lee said. “You've got to deal with it, move on and learn from it and make sure you don't repeat it.”

The guy who may have seen Lee's resiliency the most this week was backup quarterback Cody Green. The freshman said there was a “new notch” in Lee since the loss to the Hokies. He was the first one there and the last to leave. There was a different determination in everything he did.

“You could tell he just had a look in his eyes,” Green said.

There was little evidence of the highly publicized thumb injury on his non-throwing hand. Lee brushes it off as a nonissue.

But it was one of the things guys noticed as he fought past his first dose of disappointment, Green said.

“People saw the battle in him because he kept fighting,” he said.

And Brown says Lee isn't the only one. The veteran coach went as far as to say he has been “very impressed” with the way the Huskers as a whole have dealt with adversity.

“They came out Monday and they got after it,” he said. “I love the way this football team has responded in the last year and a half. We have really learned some great things about not sitting around pouting. We've had short memories. We've been able to come back from some tough losess and come back the next week and play well.”

And Green said the guy he shadows on a daily basis is the undeniable leader of that group.

“He's running the thing now,” Green said.

Lucas Glover's forward thinking proves crucial

2009 U.S. Open Champion Lucas Glover on creating a positive mindset:

Glover had just three top-10s in 2007, and last year he dropped to 108th on the money list. Frustrated and burned-out, Glover decided to shut it down after a September tournament.

"I was too hard on myself," Glover said. "And I just had a bad attitude when it wasn't going right. The patience issues and the bad attitude was because of expectations through the roof and not getting results, but practicing just as hard and not getting any better. That was the frustrating thing."

There was one stretch during the tournament were Glover went bogey, double bogey, bogey.

"Two years ago, if that would have happened ... no chance. I would not be sitting here," Glover said of the three-hole stretch when he went 4 over par. "No chance. But I've worked on it. My attitude's better. When something happens, I let it go. I doubled the first hole this week. Didn't slam a club. Didn't do anything."

Great shooters forget

Ray Allen hit the go-ahead shot last night despite being in a slump throughout the series. Says Doc Rivers:

"Great players have the ability to forget. All of us average guys and average players can't forget that stuff. But great shooters, great players, they keep thinking that next shot will go in, and that's Ray. That was Ray tonight."

Forward Thinking

Florida coach Billy Donovan is big on bringing in other players and coaches to talk to his team. A couple of years ago Bill Belicheck met with the team shortly before the SEC tournament. Florida was #1 in the country and Donovan wanted to make sure the team did not get full of themselves.

Belicheck showed them a video of the Breeders' Cup (which is a horse race) and paused the tape halfway through the race with the outcome still up in the air. He asked the team "Who will win? The horse with the most experienced jockey? The horse who has won the most money? The horse with the best odds prior to the race?" The team was puzzled, "No, it's the horse that runs the best race from here on out. You can't focus on prior accomplishments/failures, you must only foucs on the present and doing your best the next play."

Warriors are thinking forward

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Someone might want to check the DNA of the Warriors' players and patent a vaccine from it, because they've somehow remained immune to a plague that would leave most teams dizzy and disoriented. Injuries, front-office turmoil, jarring trades and even locker room squabbles haven't dented their sense of well-being.

Certainly no team has suffered more demoralizing last-second losses this season, which has even created an undertone of caution among Oracle Arena's notoriously exuberant fans. And still, the energy of the entire roster -- including currently exiled rookie Anthony Randolph -- remains amazingly robust. Although the Clippers fold their collective tent the minute an opponent builds a sizable lead, the Warriors, with only a few exceptions this season, so far have refused to accept their bottom-dwelling status.

Case in point: Wednesday's 124-112 win over the Phoenix Suns, a triumph far more decisive than the final score. The Warriors led by as many as 25 points, and Phoenix never dropped the lead to less than 10 points after the first quarter. Stephen Jackson celebrated his first career triple-double (30 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists) as the Warriors tied their season highs for 3-pointers (13) and assists (29).

"We've begun to trust each other," Jackson said. "We're gaining confidence in each other."

All this a mere 48 hours after watching a double-digit lead disintegrate into an overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs, the Warriors' third home collapse in a nine-day span. But if "We Believe" was Golden State's rallying cry two seasons ago, "We Can't Remember" seems to be the current mantra.

"You have to have a short memory," said Kelenna Azubuike, who scored 19 of his 25 points in the first quarter. "We understand as a team there are going to be nights when it's going to be very disappointing. You just have to keep playing."