The relationship between women's basketball performance and will to win

An analysis of the determinants of athletic performance indicated that "desire" or "Will to Win" was an important factor while an interactionist approach to personality suggested that differences in "Will to Win" might be expected both for different sports and at different levels of performance within a sport. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the relationship between "Will to Win" and performance in an eight-team women's basketball tournament. Players completed a 14-item "Will to Win" questionnaire. Team and individual scores were compared with various indices of performance. Results revealed that between two competing teams, the game was more likely to be won by the team with the higher average "Will to Win". The correlation between the mean "Will to Win" score for a team and its position of finish in a tournament was not significant. An ANOVA and Newman-Keuls comparisons revealed that the last place team had to "Will to Win" score that was significantly lower than five of the seven other competing teams. Data obtained on individual players indicated a significant but low correlation between "Will to Win" and the mean number of points scored by a player.