Disrupting the Spiral: A Lesson from March Madness
What Brenda Frese's Viral Coaching Moment Really Teaches Us
“I need you to lock in, stop being distracted. I BELIEVE in you, but you’ve got to want this moment. This isn’t my story, alright?”
This was Maryland coach Brenda Frese, nose-to-nose with her star player Oluchi Okananwa during the NCAA tournament. The clip went viral, but as always occurs on the internet, we largely missed the point. People saw a coach getting in a player’s face and immediately split into two camps:“That’s what real coaching looks like” versus “You can’t treat players like that.”
Frese was trying to do one of the hardest things in coaching, get an athlete to stop spiraling. We’ve all been there. A race isn’t going your way so you start giving into that voice that’s telling you to slow down or stop. Or maybe the shots aren’t falling, and your instinct is to pass the ball instead of taking the next shot.
When you start to spiral, your attention scatters and you lose focus. Your mind is replaying the mistake, and then drifting into the future thinking about what it means to blow it. You’re stuck catastrophizing.
Frese got her out of the spiral in two ways.
First, she walked directly to Okanawa, locked eyes, and forced her to focus and connect with her in the present. When our mind is scattered, it’s jumping all around looking for anything that is better than the present moment. It’s looking for excuses, justifications, or an escape hatch. It’s one of our brains natural responses to stress.
By making direct eye contact, Frese gave Okananwa an anchor in the present. She was forcing her to connect, to point all of her attention at her, instead of being distracted by whatever is going on in the periphery.
Second, she gave confidence AND agency.
“I believe in you...But you’ve got to want this moment.” This isn’t my story...”
She didn’t say, “What are you doing...get your head in the game.” Those often feed the spiral, giving your brain evidence that it’s all going wrong. Akin to telling a nervous person to “just relax.”
In our lowest moments, we need a signal that someone still sees what we’re capable of. You can’t use it that often, but a coach or mentor telling you that you can do this is one of the most powerful signals we can send. As I wrote previously, it’s the exact message Roger Bannister’s coach gave to him when he was struggling with doubts before he broke the 4-minute mile barrier.
Belief on its own isn’t enough. You need to provide a bridge towards meaningful action. Frese gave her player the agency and challenge to go get it.
Okananwa responded by scoring 7 points in the third quarter after that exchange, added 6 more in the fourth, and finished with a team-high 21.
Maryland still lost the game, but Okananwa showed up.
It was a brilliant display of snapping a player out of everything scattering towards catastrophe: “Really what that was, was a regroup moment for myself and her telling me she believed in me. Sometimes that’s really all you need to hear.”
Research backs this approach up.
Psychologists at the University of Amsterdam found that whatever emotional state coaches expressed predicted their players’ emotional state and subsequent performance. Angry coaches produced frustrated players who made more errors.
Another study of basketball players found that low to moderate anger targeted at a specific problem could improve performance. And that raw, undirected intensity made things worse.
Often, we confuse intensity with an old-school style of coaching. But what research shows is that anger and aggression can be both good or bad. It depends on the context and message behind it. It can push us towards the unbridled aggression of road rage, or the controlled aggression of someone hunting for their goal. The former causes us to lose our mind. The latter allows us to bring some juice with just enough control to get the most out of ourselves.
Texas A&M football coach Mike Elko put it this way: “My job is to be calm and collected when they’re frantic. My job is to create intensity when they’re not intense. My job is to always be opposite the moment.”
The leader’s job is the counterbalance. Frese saw her star’s attention drifting when the moment called for focus and controlled fire. So she brought the intensity Okananwa wasn’t generating on her own.
Intensity is just one tool that can be used in a specific moment. Other times, we might need to be like Pete Carroll who told his starting quarterback to find his center and take a deep breath before that QB led them on a successful drive.
Sometimes we need calm cool collected. Other times, to lock in and focus. Still others, to unleash the inner dog and throw caution to the wind.
And perhaps most importantly, what allows you to use these tools is the foundation that it’s built upon. As Frese put it after the game, “You can’t have those conversations if you don’t have a relationship with them.” Which is the mistake so many parents, teachers, and coaches make. They try to mimic their favorite coach, be the intense person screaming…without building any sort of relationship to (A) be able to say it and be taken the right way, and (B) understand if that is what that person needs at that moment.
It’s the relationship underneath that gives you the ability to use the right tool at the right time.
Know your athlete. Build the relationship. Then know when to disrupt the cycle and focus them on the work at hand.
-Steve
Excellent breakdown of the situation and the result. As a college AD, I am especially thankful for your clarity as we have such a culture to run to judgement. It is so clear in this case that the coach has built a relationship with her player both on and off the court and that allows her to bring that level of intensity to the situation and have it so well received by her athlete.
The love I possess for March Madness can't be matched by anything else. It has been since last year that I have watched it and listened to almost very bit of pre and post game interviews of coaches & players and I am like the relationship, the bond, the rapport each and every player build and the bond shared by coaches with players is best thing I can listen to 7 witness.
Coaches treat their players more better than people treat in their bloodline for sure.
Coaches can make or break team. That goes for Gregg Popovich, that goes for Coach K, Steve Kerr, Tara VanDerveer, Dawn Staley, Kara Lawson, Geno Auriemma, Patrick Sang and other thousands of coaches in any walk of life.
Sticking to fundamentals, being authentic and flexible, putting in consistent work for years on end yields good results.
Take for example this.
Two years before she was named “Most Outstanding Player” of the 2026 NCAA Tournament, Lauren Betts was lying on a gurney in a psychiatric ward.
At 6 ft 7” and the No. 1 ranked recruit in her class, Lauren was a starter for one of the best women’s basketball programs in the country. From the outside, she was thriving. On the inside, she was suffering.
In a deeply personal essay published in The Players’ Tribune in March 2026, a few weeks before she led UCLA to its first-ever national championship, Betts described the morning her depression finally broke through every defense she had built: “I don’t want to do this anymore.” She called the team trainer and she checked herself in to the psychiatric ward.
“On the outside, she appeared beautiful, talented, and successful. But on the inside, it didn’t match.” - UCLA Head Coach Cori Close
I don't know but players/athletes are some focused that they have to deal with Identity Foreclosure at some point of time in their lives or it can be multiple times for some as well.
When one is playing at the highest level or be it Sophomore as well, they are entirely focused on how to be the best version of themselves. From the time they wake up- they need to do take are of the diet before the workouts, then go for the workout, strength & conditioning in the gym, rest and then do some of it in the evening and very next day appears. This is the routine of any basketball player which they keep on doing it for months which turn to years and the ultimate goal is to win the NCAA Championship once if not multiple times.
How can one jump off from this box, it is quite difficult for anyone to broaden the aperture and put off the blinders for once. But blinders are quite helpful as in today's world, the algo can easily waver us off the Task in hand and can distract & steal our effort in the moment.
But the way Lauren Betts cam through all of this is great to see and behind every of this story there are n number of people whose support was the reason one could do wonders.
I have understood Psychological Safety in any team, organization, family set up or be it anywhere is the foremost thing to thrive in life.
It was because of her mother & coach Close that got her back told her to be vulnerable and be herself with whatever she feels. It is quite difficult to talk about mental health socially because people are quite fast to tear you apart but when you are supported by people around you, you are not filled with fear as you know you have a safety net even if you fall.