We�re Going Streaking

Teams get cold, players get hot, teams go on runs, and players get injured. Over the course of a season. Just about anything can happen. Winning streaks can make a season while losing streaks can break one. When you're winning, it feels like you can do no wrong. But when you're losing, it feels like you may never win again.

While games are contests of physical skill and ability, there is a much larger mental component that can strongly affect performance and results. Players can have skills and teams can have tactics, but without a strong mental and emotional constitution, winless streaks can actually perpetuate losing.

The Minnesota Lynx opened up the 2007 season by dropping their first seven games. The Washington Mystics lost eight in a row before finally winning and the Houston Comets' streak lasted 10 games. So what goes through the minds of players who are mired in that terrible slump or losing game after game?

"If you are not mentally strong and together as a team, it (losing) can affect your confidence and can affect you," Washington Mystics forward DeLisha Milton-Jones said. "Confidence can be shattered on an individual basis and when that happens, the team can implode and you have big problems."

The responsibility to snap a losing streak can fall on the star player, who always feels the pressure to turn things around, or the team's head coach.

"Sometimes when you have lost so many games, you start to doubt whether or not you can actually win again," ESPN analyst and former Orlando Miracle coach Carolyn Peck explained.

Think positively, many athletes are told, but for Milton-Jones an upbeat atmosphere fails to cure a cold streak.

"Sometimes it might be too positive," she said. "Sometimes we might need to kick ourselves in the butt or need a slap in the face to wake us up and realize that this is our job. They pay us to win. No matter how we finished last year, this is a new year and it is anybody's championship."

So what's the best trick to flip the switch and truly reverse the losing curse?

"The number one thing you can do to increase team cohesion is win," Dr. Colleen Hacker, a sport psychology consultant, said. "You cannot win in basketball without team cohesion and you need to win to build team cohesion. It is a lose-lose situation for those losing, and a win-win situation for those winning. How ironic."

�We went out on the court thinking that we were better than everyone and played that way," Battle recalls about her time at UConn.

By Ned Dishman/NBAE/Getty Images

For the 10-2 Detroit Shock, "Winning is the only thing they know. It is a mentality they keep, they focus on and I think Bill Laimbeer reminds them everyday," Peck says.

Across the landscape of sports, winning teams demonstrate that they can defend, score and win, ultimately developing a sense of invincibility . Teams with a proven track record play hard and work together and know that they can, and will, produce results.

New York's Ashley Battle experienced slight deja-vu as New York kicked off the season with a 5-0 run. Battle was a member of the University of Connecticut Women's basketball team during their 70-game winning streak, spanning the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 seasons. As an active witness to one of the most impressive streaks in women's basketball, she knows how winning can positively affect a team and a player.

"It most definitely helped us to keep our confidence up because our coach was extremely confident all the time and it just carried on over to us," she said. "We assumed our coach's personality and we went out and played like that. We went out on the court thinking that we were better than everyone and played that way."

Fear the winners and prey on the losers, the mental component of athletics rewards winning and punishes losing. Losing promotes self doubt and frustration while winning increases cohesiveness and confidence. If you want to emerge from slumps and be a champ, forget what happened yesterday and come out today believing you are a winner.