HAILSTATEBEAT: The Science Behind Weatherspoon, William And MSU's Buzzer-Beating Shots

For over 40 years, my dad has been teaching psychology at Mississippi State. Dr. Thomas Carskadon's section of General Psychology can be one of the toughest to get into, despite the fact that it's held in a 300-person auditorium in Dorman Hall. "Dr. C" is appreciated for his entertaining stories that always, in some way, relate to the subject matter, and I got to have the experience of taking his class when I was a freshman at MSU.

However, despite my knowledge that he knows what he's talking about after decades of teaching, publishing and researching psychological matters, I disagreed with him on one particular subject of his lectures. As you might imagine given the fact that I'm sharing this story in this venue, it was an issue with sports.

Psychology tells us that athletes being on a hot streak is a myth. Or perhaps a better way to explain it would be to call it a mirage. It's not what we think it is. In basketball, for example, someone making a long streak of consecutive shots doesn't mean that player is "in the zone," or however you'd like to describe such a scenario. Sure, those streaks happen, but over time, shooting is – supposedly – no different than flipping a coin.

Whether a quarter has landed on tails 10 times in a row or one, there is still a 50 percent chance that the next flip will land on tails, no better and no worse. It's always a 50-50 shot. The same applies for a basketball player: if they're, say, a 45 percent shooter from the field, then there is always a 45 percent chance the shot will go in. Streaks are going to happen naturally, but over time, they're meaningless beyond a means for the numbers to work themselves out, despite what it feels like when we watch.

Well, I disagree, and I told him as much in class that day – in a respectful manner, of course – but we haven't discussed it since. For the first time in years, I revisited the subject with him on Sunday when MSU junior guard Quinndary Weatherspoon made his second game-winning buzzer beater in three games and the third of his career at MSU, having drilled his first one as a freshman to beat Vanderbilt at Humphrey Coliseum.

Making shots like that is as difficult as it is rare, so I wondered if the same principle applied. I texted my dad after the game to see what psychology and odds had to say on the subject, expecting another answer that would completely diffuse the narrative of there being something special or impressive about Weatherspoon's feats.

I was wrong.

The first message: "The greater the presence of others, crowd, noise, and the resulting stress, the more the most probable response is intensified. Thus, a mediocre person will get worse, but a true star will get better."

And the second: "Actually, the bridge word is really arousal: The crowd, the stress, etc., increase arousal in the player, and it is arousal that intensifies the most probable response, i.e. super play by super stars, but diminished play by lesser players."

So there we have it: science proves that Quinndary Weatherspoon is a star.

After checking with the psychology expert, I asked the player himself. When you're in those moments, does your blood pump extra hard? Is your mind racing? In short, can you feel the stress and gravity of the situation? Again, I didn't get the answer I expected.

"It feels normal," Weatherspoon answered, "like there are 20 minutes on the clock. I'm just trying to get a shot up and it's falling."

Psychology was right. The stress has no effect on Weatherspoon except to help him even more easily do what he so naturally does well: make shots.

"I can remember four times in my 22 years as a head coach that we won a game at the buzzer [before this season]. Now it's six, and he has three of them, so it's amazing," MSU head coach Ben Howland said. "He's just a player. He really makes plays. He's a player and he makes plays."

Perhaps as impressive as the made shot was Weatherspoon's awareness in the short time leading up to it. When he got the steal near the sideline on Dayton's side of the court, time was already almost up. Most players would likely have taken a few long strides and thrown up a low-percentage three-pointer when they saw the game clock dip down to one second left. Weatherspoon kept going, though, much to Howland's delight.

In those 22 years of coaching that he mentioned, Howland has learned a lot, and with the game tied, he knew his team only needed one point. Taking a three-pointer would not only have been excessive, but it would have cut the possible ways to score in half. By driving all the way to the basket and taking a contested shot, there was the hope of A) Making the shot and B) Getting fouled and earning another opportunity to score on a free throw in case the shot didn't go in.

In Weatherspoon's case, of course, option No. 2 never mattered, but the fact that he still made the right call to drive all the way to the basket with, almost literally, no time to think about it, only underlines the moral of the story: Quinndary Weatherspoon is a star.

Those who follow MSU sports know well that shots like these, despite how uncommon they are elsewhere, have become something of a regular occurrence lately. After all, it was just this spring that then-junior point guard Morgan William made the biggest play in the school's athletic history when she hit The Shot, a buzzer-beater to upset No. 1 UConn and advance MSU's women's basketball team to the National Championship. Following such a spectacular feat, even the opposing coach had to admit that what he had just seen was special.

"That's one of the toughest shots to make, from that distance, under that kind of pressure," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said that day.

But William, as psychology could have told us, only excels under pressure. Just the weekend before, William had racked up 41 points and seven steals in an overtime win against the heavily-favored Baylor Bears in the Elite Eight, just one day removed from the three-year anniversary of her father's death. That William, like Weatherspoon, first made her mark as a freshman when she hit a buzzer-beater to defeat rival Ole Miss should be no surprise.

These Bulldogs have always been stars. They've hit the shots to prove it.

Mississippi State University Athletics

HAILSTATEBEAT: The Science Behind Weatherspoon, William And MSU's Buzzer-Beating Shots

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