Athletes do anything from sleeping with their bats to changing their jock straps. From shooting extra jump shots at 6 a.m. to not washing their jock straps. Coaches take Tylenol and sleep less. They get up and watch their players take jump shots at 6 a.m. Then they switch to Excedrin.
General managers skip aspirin and then head for real drugs.
When the real drugs don't work, they fire the coach. All of these solutions might seem logical in their own peculiar ways, but still, after hundreds of years of organized athletics, there is still no proven method of how to break a funk. The Iowa State men's basketball team is now in that rut. Not the fans. It's his job.