Amber Smith needs to get over herself.
That's what her teammates are telling her.
That's what her coaches are telling her.
It's even what she's telling herself.
The Kentucky senior point guard admits she's become her own worst enemy in her quest to come back from her second torn anterior cruciate ligament in three years.
The knee has healed physically and Smith can do everything she once could, but she still doesn't have the confidence she carried as the point guard who led UK to the Elite Eight in 2010.
"I'll have a good day and make some plays, then I'll feel like it's not enough," Smith said at the annual Media Day for Kentucky women's basketball. "I need to stop thinking like that."
Smith is impatient and eager, but those qualities that make her a good point guard also are making the fifth-year senior her own worst enemy.
"Having a little rust to her game has really shaken her up," UK associate head coach Kyra Elzy said on Tuesday. "Plays she could normally make, she'll still see the play, but throw the ball out of bounds."
Elzy has spent extra time watching film with Smith, showing her that she's back physically and that she can do all of the things she used to do if she just lets the game come to her.
Smith can go back to the player in March of 2010 who was UK's go-to person on defense and its emotional leader.
Smith can go back to being the player who averaged a career-best 9.2 points and dished out 5.5 assists in UK's seven post-season games.
"I just want it right now," she said. "I want to snap my fingers and have things go back to how they were."
But her coaches are trying to get her to remember just how far she's come since July of 2010 when she was the player lying on the floor of the Joe Craft Center crying, clutching her left knee, knowing before any doctor diagnosed it that she had torn her ACL again.
"We keep telling her to keep working hard and the game will come back to you," she said the coaches have told Smith. "We're going to let her play through some mistakes, but she's harder on herself than we could ever be on her."
Kentucky Coach Mitchell sees the same issues.
"She doesn't weigh failure and success equally and it's holding her back a little bit," he explained. "She gets a little too frustrated with her mistakes right now."
Both coaches and Smith said that it's one of those mental hurdles that only time and getting to play in an actual game for the first time in almost 20 months can heal.
But as important as Smith will be to the success of this year's version of Kentucky, it's not all resting on her shoulders as it once did.
"We are really fortunate that we are not waiting for (her to be our emotional leader)," Mitchell said. "That's coming from different places, which is a really good sign for this team."
UK, which returns 10 players and four starters from last season's 25-9 team that advanced to the NCAA Tournament's second round, could be a special team, its coach said.
Mitchell's group has more depth than it's ever had and has a chance to not only get back to its third straight Southeastern Conference championship game, but also to win the title.
"We're tired of coming in second place, we're not going to settle for that," Smith said of UK's back-to-back empty trips to the SEC championship game. "We want better.
"We don't just want to get there," she continued. "We want to go to the Final Four. We definitely want to make history."
That's the Amber Smith her coaches have been waiting to hear from this season.
She just needs to get over herself.
"I've never lacked confidence, but this is different," Smith explained. "This is new territory to me. I just need to talk to myself and get myself over this mental block. I think I will."
