do losses hurt more than wins feel good?

[dockingsched]

anyone else have an unbalanced return on their emotional investment?

whenever my team losses a big game, its devastating. depending on the situation, it can lead to a semi-depression. the wins, i'm sad to say, don't lead to the type of happiness that should offset the losses. the wins sometimes feel like a relief rather than pure excitement. thoughts?

[Dtown84]

Depends how big the win and how big the loss. Really the big moments stick with you either way.

On relief, it really depends where your team is. Back in 04 nobody expected the Pistons to win the title so there was no pressure just jubilation. I'd imagine you could say the same to the Giants fans during the super bowl. While at the same time, you can bet the Red Sox felt some pressure in the world series last year.

[carrottop12]

Losing hurts more then winning feels good. That's always true.

However I think winning the championship is a much higher feeling then not winning the championship is a low.

Winning the championship is forever, that's something you can always look at and be proud of. If you lose each year, at least there is always next year.

[Narcist]

When my team wins I want more so its like feeling somethings incomplete.

When you watch your team lose and its one of those losses when you just realize the other team is better. Yeah that can lead to semi depression.

When i play any sport and I lose I dont get depressed realy I just feel like trying again.

Winning feels better too more statisfiying.

[Ortho Stice]

I've thought about this a lot. At times I've felt it was stupid to have other people determine your happiness and sadness, leaving it out of your control. But without crushing losses, winning wouldn't be as sweet. Having your team finally win a championship is the closest most people in modern society will get to experiencing a religious exaltation.

[Relentless88]

When you're leading a game by 20 points or more then end up choking and losing on a last second shot, that definitely hurts more than beating the Knicks by 20 points.

[dflash3]

I've noticed that the pain of losing stay around a lot longer then the joy of winning because you have to go back out and compete again.

[studcrackers]

When you're leading a game by 20 points or more then end up choking and losing on a last second shot, that definitely hurts more than beating the Knicks by 20 points.

what was a better or worse feeling, blowing a 24 point lead twice in 2 years vs. us or finally beating the mavs by about 16?

[02102007]

anyone else have an unbalanced return on their emotional investment?

whenever my team losses a big game, its devastating. depending on the situation, it can lead to a semi-depression. the wins, i'm sad to say, don't lead to the type of happiness that should offset the losses. the wins sometimes feel like a relief rather than pure excitement. thoughts?

in my opinion, when i play pickup games it doesn't matter, we just shake hands, give positive feedback and move on. its about respect.

[Teen Girl Squad]

I agree in general but personally I enjoy wins a a lot more mainly because I've learned to distance myself emotionally from losses. I think losses hurt more because as fans you tend to think you're team are the favorites more often than not and always expect them to win. So a win is just what should have happened and a loss is an upset.

[lukeridenour]

tough question.. i might have to lean with losing hurts more assuming its a championship game.

[Cevap]

assuming regular season games, it depends on the team. For example, to a Twolves fan wins do probably feel better since they only get like 20 of them a year. For a detroit fan or spurs fan a loss is worse since there's only 20 of them a year...

[CircleCitysportsfan]

Wins don't feel good because when your team wins you have to come on here and defend them and say they won the game with defense not the refs help. My team does not win that often though so i just take losses up the ass.

[durden_tyler]

Always the losing. And it's not only in basketball. It's the nature of life and humans.

[Basti]

assuming regular season games, it depends on the team. For example, to a Twolves fan wins do probably feel better since they only get like 20 of them a year. For a detroit fan or spurs fan a loss is worse since there's only 20 of them a year...

yeah that is true to a certain degree and to the full degree I'd say it takes a POV on how you react in general about winning or losing.

another thing is that it matters against who you win. I can recall being REALLY happy last season when we beat the suns twice and the way we beat them but it was also partly due to the fact that I want to see the suns lose vs teams that can exploit their weaknesses.

but on the other hand it is also really bad to see my favorite team losing against a better team on paper which was really lucky (I can recall Denver being really lucky vs the wolves in the last couple of years) and losing this game by like 3 points or less. that is really hurting. or losses like the ones vs the celtics (both this season). but in this case it is rather due to the lack of experience or intangibles to finish a game.

for me personally a win is the always making up for a loss but it is only short term. I guess the next day I already forgot that feeling (unless it was a huge win)

[Cybulski37]

Well I joined a football team a couple of years ago that had won three straight championships and hadn't lost in that span. So, we were expected to win every single game, and when we did(with the exception of a 14-13 OT win over what was deemed our best competition), our wins gave us some momentary pleasure, but we forgot it as soon as we hit the practice field on Monday. But when we lost, to a team we really shouldn't have lost to, it was absolutely devastating. Our practices were different after that. There were less jokes during them, and before games. We had to be all business. And when we met the team we beat 14-13 in OT during the season in the playoffs, they beat us the same way we beat them, 22-21 on the last play of the game, it was probably the worst I've ever felt after a game. Then, last fall I played for my highschool, we really weren't expected to do much, we were small, had no depth, were from the suburbs, etc. But we destroyed everything in our path on our way to the title. That was a great feeling, but probably not as good as the losses were bad.

[DarthBane]

Like many have said already, I think it's largely dependant on what you expect the outcome to be and your point of view.

Two weeks ago, I had a game and we wo by 10 points or so. It felt good, but it's not like I remembered it the next day or was excited the next day because of it. But just last night, we lost to a team we should have beaten, but we just played really poorly. That loss stung and when i woke up I was thinking about it... all the shots you miss, all the bad plays you made, etc.

If you expect to lose some games, then winning is more satisfying. If you expect to take the league by storm, then losses have way more impact.

[Albanian Damien]

Losses hurt less than wins feel good. If my teams gets blown out by 20 (haha yeah right)it doesn't mater because it's only one game out of 82 games, and my team most likely played a very bad game. If my team wins by 20 (more like 40-50) I can feel confident in my team for the next week. If my team chokes I feel horrible however I again rationalize theres 82 games in a season, but when my team comes from behind that makes me feel 10 times better. Now I think the playoffs its a little different. Losses feel worse but wins feel 10 times better, especially big wins like ones where:
- Your leading scorer for the season explodes for 40 in a showdown with the Leagues best player in a game 7
- Your team beats down the 2nd best team in the conference, at their own house
- Your team comes from 10 in the 4th quarter to win ad advance to the finals, again, in their opponents house.
- Your team comes back from 24 down to win and go up 3-1 in the finals, again, at your opponents home field.
- Your team returns home and for the final game of the season pummels the easiest team they've had to face in the whole playoffs, by a margin of 40 points.

Just one of those wins makes me forget the feeling I had during a roundful of losses.

Also the same thing applies to the team you play own but it's little different. When you lose you always feel like you could've done more, but when you win you forget all the mistakes you made in the game.

[edfmx86]

I hate losing, winning is the only way around it. winning is more of a way to avoid that sick feeling

[dockingsched]

I hate losing, winning is the only way around it. winning is more of a way to avoid that sick feeling

, thats a perfect way of describing it.