The SMU basketball community is currently at a point in its season where it has to make a decision.

The players, coaches and even fans have to decide between an easy route and a difficult route. The easy route is to write off this season, quit working hard to get better, and blame others for failures. The difficult route is taking losses and failures for what they are: lessons in life. By treating failures as lessons, you recognize that they are actually opportunities to get better. Failures tend to highlight what your misgivings are and show you what you need to work on.

Recent losses (0-3 in conference play and a 20-plus-point loss at Oklahoma) have shaken the players’ confidence in themselves, each other and in the system they are playing in. Losing streaks tend to bring out the worst in people, as does any failure in life. It is human nature to protect your confidence by making excuses and blaming others. By pointing fingers at everybody but yourself, you fail to recognize that you can get better, and therefore don’t put in the extra work required to succeed the next time around.

I know, because I’ve been guilty of this at certain times in my life, as we all have. This is the easy route alluded to earlier. By choosing not to recognize your own misgivings, you save yourself the work and effort that is required for you to get better and succeed. Now because this is the easy route, many people travel it throughout their lives. Their failures are never their fault, and their personal growth and potential is limited because of it. These people are the ones who ultimately end up failing in life. The people who succeed in life recognize their misgivings and strive to improve them. Through hard work, they ensure themselves of eventual success.

Well, we are currently faced with failure and have a decision to make. Should we take the easy route and blame others, or should we recognize our faults and work to get better? The answer seems obvious, but many of us will choose the easy route. Players will blame coaches, coaches will blame players and fans will blame everybody. However, if we all take a minute and ask ourselves what we can do better, whether it’s shooting after practice, drawing up plays that cater to players’ strengths, or just showing up at the games and showing support, we will realize that we aren’t doing everything we can and only have ourselves to blame for our current predicament. Through this realization, we are taking the all-important first step in improving our performance, which is recognizing that an opportunity exists to get better.

Coming to this realization enough times ensures not only a successful season, but a successful future for the program.