Win When You Lose

On Saturday night, the UCLA Bruins lost in the Final Four to the unbeaten Gonzaga Bulldogs in devastating fashion.

The Bruins were down by five points with less than a minute left in overtime and managed to tie the game, all to have their hearts broken when Zags Guard Jalen Suggs banked in a shot from half court at the buzzer.

But after the game, UCLA Coach Mick Cronin put the devastating loss in perspective and gave us as leaders a pivotal reminder.

“We won,” Cronin told CBS’ Tracy Wolfson. “True greatness is giving your best effort. What else can I ask from those guys?”

“We might not have cut down the nets. We’ll get another shot at that, God willing,” he added. “But they gave me everything I could possibly have asked of them. They just refused to give in. Just an unbelievable effort, Tracy, by my guys. I’m just so proud of them.”

In leadership, we’re judged by the scoreboard, our gains and our losses, how much revenue we generate.

The key performance indicators are in place as a means of measuring our progress and stacking ourselves against the competition.

But sometimes when we win, we actually lose. And sometimes when we lose, we actually win.

UCLA battled injury throughout the season, lack of size and didn’t have the athletes of many of the other teams it competed against. The Bruins were given next to no chance to defeat Gonzaga — considered by many to be one of the great college teams ever — but still took the Bulldogs to the brink.

The margin between euphoria and devastation is incredibly thin sometimes, but Cronin reminded us that just because the scoreboard may say we came up short, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we lost the game.

We win with our intent, with our purpose, with our character and with our resolve. The rest is external.

UCLA won’t go down in many record books. It finished the season with a 22-10 record and lost in the Final Four, as so many other teams have over the years.

But the Bruins’ grit, cohesion and ability to navigate tumult were the ingredients of model leadership and, as Cronin put it, true greatness.

That counts for more than what any scoreboard says.