Home Rules!

Home Court Advantage Can Make or Break a Team

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

I am 13 and play for my middle school basketball team. We recently played a playoff game at our rival team's school gym. For the first time, we were booed when we were introduced and the crowd was really intense -- negative for us, positive for the other team.

We actually ended up playing really poorly and lost. I've been thinking about whether we had a bad day as a team, or whether all the screaming from the crowd actually made us lose. What do you think?

Sincerely,

Team Player

Dear Team Player,

There are two challenges of the game. The first is athletic ability, and once you teach form and game rules, there’s not a whole lot you can do to make a person more or less athletic or able. They’re shooters or they’re not shooters. The shooters can be made to be better shooters than they are, but the non-shooters can’t be made into shooters.

The more interesting and more important part of the game is the psychology of the play. Teaching athletes to focus is an incredible challenge and one that wins or loses the game. Athletes who play in the NBA are not just athletes. They are performers. These games are played in front of an audience, and the audience reaction has become a HUGE part of the game. Professional athletes, as performers, are well aware of this.

A negative OR a positive atmosphere can rattle a player. A player who’s girlfriend, wife or mother or father is in the audience for the very first time — or who is in the audience watching them after a pivotal fight at home — is going to affect the athlete’s play if they do not have 100% control over their focus, and because players are not robots, they do not have that control all of the time, if ever.

All that said, the advantage of playing on a home court with a home audience is constancy. The home team knows what to expect from their home team audience and fans. This allows them to focus on their game and alleviate the uncertainty of audience reaction from the play.

Playing an away game with the away audience booing or taunting during a fast play or waiting for a player to take a foul shot, can add uncertainty to the dynamic of the play. This can affect the play, the spirit of the team, the score and the win or loss.

There are, however, performers — both athletes and others — who thrive on uncertainty. These thrill seekers love the unknown and they will thrive under home court disadvantage — but they are few, far between, and not the majority of any team. Having a home court, is an advantage.

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

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