Volleyball Basics - Rotations, Side Out Percentage

In my opinion, one of the most useful volleyball stats for coaches is side out percentage (SO%). SO% is simple. It is points scored on serve receive divided by total attempts. It is a simple stat to record. One coach or player simply records a 1 for point on serve receive and a 0 for a point lost on serve receive. After the match the total number of 1's and 0's is recorded, the 1's are divided by the total of both numbers. That's the SO%. The same can easily be done for the opponent to get your team's scoring percentage, or their SO%.

In the recent NCAA women's tournament championship match, the AVCA twitter feed featured some stats from the match collected by Data Volley. One that immediately stood out to me was this one:

Nebraska side out at 66% Texas at 59%

— AVCA (@AVCAVolleyball) December 20, 2015

Something I heard many years ago about SO% is that two teams with the same SO%, let's say 50%, played each other 30 times, each team would usually end up with 15 wins. If one team improves to 51% and holds the other team to 49% and they play 30 times, the team with the 51% improves to 20 wins. That's a big change in the outcome of a season from a small change in team performance. I have run computer simulations of these scenarios and the win numbers are supported by the simulation data. The simulation numbers were a little off, but they're close enough. Side out percentage is a simple to measure stat that gives actual meaningful information.

A simple way to get even more information is to record SO% by rotation. There are six rotations and each one will have its own SO%. This information will give coaches a quick idea of where the team does well and where it struggles. Two simple ways this information can help in coaching is to give information about where the team can improve and to help decide about which rotation is the best one to start each set.

One way to use SO% to improve is to play games with the team in a rotation where they struggle and try to score some goal number of points out of ten tries. If your team has a 60% overall SO%, your team might have a goal of 6 points out of 10 attempts for those problem rotations.

Side out percentage should be taken into consideration when deciding on which rotation to start sets. The majority of teams I have coached against have started in rotation 1 with the setter as the first server. If that rotation or one soon after has a bad SO% it could cost the team over the season. Running computer simulations of matches starting at different rotations using real by rotation SO%, my teams could realistically win another match or two by starting in the right rotation. Matches rarely have teams play each rotation an equal number of times. Starting with your best rotations make it more likely to give those better rotations more opportunities. It isn't a huge difference, but over many matches it can add up. Against an opponent that is otherwise very close to your team this could make the difference. Another consideration is that any time your SO% is above 50%, it is more advantageous to start matches in serve receive than with the serve. Possibly the only place I would still want to serve first is if my best server is also at the beginning of our best serve receive rotations.

Side out percentage is one of the easiest stats to collect, even with pen and paper, and it is very useful for coaches. I recommend using it to make coaching decisions for practice design and competition choices. Small improvements in side out percentage can make a huge difference in your season wins and losses. Making the right decisions as far as something as simple as which rotation you start each set could mean another win or two.



Volleyball Basics are intended to present some of the fundamental volleyball knowledge that everyone serious about the sport should know.

Stephen Curry's Unusual Basketball Training

A few weeks back I saw a video talking about Stephen Curry and his work ethic displayed at a young age. I think it really captures what it takes to become an elite level athlete in a sport. I was hesitant to write about it because of the physical demands of volleyball and how they differ from those of basketball. Overuse is a serious concern in volleyball. Too much hitting can lead to shoulder injury. Too much jumping can lead to lower extremity injury. Still the sentiment remains. The best players are likely the ones who train on their own outside of scheduled practice time, even if it is just showing up 15 minutes early, or staying after a few minutes.

Extra practice time and over-training aside, getting more reps is necessary for improving at a skill. Of course, the more specific the practice the better. With that in mind, I saw this video and article. It was interesting to me, but most of it is not applicable to volleyball. Basketball is a much more random sport than volleyball with a lot more contact. Dribbling in particular doesn't really have a volleyball equivalent. Dribbling a basketball is something that the best players do without looking at what they are doing, and being able to split their attention between the skill and court conditions around them is valuable. the dribbling drills make sense. I don't know how valuable the other stuff with the goggles and tennis balls is, but it is an interesting hypothesis. He is getting a lot of reps dribbling, but I don't know how the lack of specificity is helping or not.

The thing that I think is important to take away from it is the part about the practice reps he gets from longer than conventional three point range. The article mentions the trainer thinking Curry will eventually start to incorporate half court shots into his regular game instead of just end of game buzzer beaters. I'll leave the discussion of whether or not that makes basketball sense to basketball people. I think the lesson to learn is that it might be a good idea to invest practice time and reps to unusual situations that sometimes arise in matches. Maybe put your team on serve receive down 21-24 and see if they can rally and win the set. Maybe 21-24 is an unrealistic starting point, but put them in a position where they need to make a comeback to win. Familiarize your team with the situations that arise in matches that often cost teams wins. Make the situation familiar, and the solution will also be familiar. They do it all the time in practice.

And Ivan Zaytsev's serving run was ridiculous.

Volleyball Basics - Overlap in Rotations

Figure 1 - Overview of overlap

One of the key pieces of information needed to understand rotations and how to alter them is overlap. When the ball is served, at the point of contact each player needs to be in their position as indicated by the serve order. The player serving in this rotation is in zone 1 in the back right. The next server is in 2 in the front right, and so on as can be seen in figure 1. This is just a representation of the zones of the court. The arrows indicate how the players need to be positioned in relation to each other. 1 needs to be behind 2 and to the right of 6. 3 needs to be in front of 6, to the right of 4, and to the left of 2. These restrictions only apply to the players the arrows point to. There is no restrictions on where players are positioned in relation to players diagonal from them.

Figure 2 - Example serve receive rotation

Figure 2 illustrates a legal serve receive formation. 5, 6, and 1 are in the back row and correspond with the positions illustrated in figure 1. The player in zone 1 has just served (service order 1) and the team is now in serve receive. 2, 3, and 4 are in the front row. 2 will be the next server upon side out. In this situation 4, 5, and 1 are primary passers and will receive the majority of serves.

Figure 3 - Overlap arrows for the player 6th in service order

Figure 3 shows the arrows that apply to the player (in black) 6th in service order. The players in red are the ones 6 needs to be concerned with in this situation. 6 needs to be behind 3, to the right of 5, and to the left of 1. The players in grey are diagonal from 6 and have no bearing on 6's position on the court. This is why front row players 2 and 4 can be behind 6 even though they are front row players.

Figure 4 - Overlap arrows for the player 4th in service order

Figure 4 shows the arrows that apply to the player (again in black) 4th in service order. In this case the player only has two players to be concerned with, 3 and 5 in red. Players 1, 2, and 6 in grey are diagonal from 4 and have no bearing on 4's position on the court. 4 only needs to be in front of 5 and to the left of 3. This kind of formation is common in 3 passer systems. 4 doesn't have to be very far in front of 5 to be legal. Sometimes this can be seen with 4's toes only slightly closer than 5's toes, and 5's heels are only slightly closer to the service line.



Keys to remember:
1. Service order with current server when serving and most recent server is number 1 after losing serve.
2. Players' position on the court in relation to each other is governed by service order as illustrated in figure 1.
3. Each player needs to maintain the forward/back and left/right positioning based on their arrows shown in figure 1.
4. The forward/back and left/right positioning can be very small.

Use these key points when using and adjusting serve receive formations.


See also:
Zones of the Court
Introduction to Rotations

Volleyball Basics are intended to present some of the fundamental volleyball knowledge that everyone serious about the sport should know.

Volleyball Basics - Introduction to Rotations

One of the fundamental aspects of organized team play in volleyball is the use of rotations. Rotations are designed to ensure a front row/back row balance for positions and their roles in the offense and defense. They are also used to place players in a position on the court so they can receive serve, if that is one of their responsibilities, and move into the areas on the court where they will be set. Serve and serve receive rotations place players so they can perform their primary responsibilities with a minimum of movement.

Front row/back row balance is accomplished by placing the outside hitters opposite each other in the service rotation, middle blockers are opposite each other, and the setter is opposite the, well, opposite. To differentiate outsides and middles, they are labeled outside hitter 1 and middle blocker 1 for those either side of the setter in service order, and outside hitter 2 and middle blocker 2 next to the opposite in service order.

Base defensive positions with setter in back row.

Rotations are numbered by serving order, the setter is first. For rotation 1, the setter is in zone 1, outside hitter 1 is next in serving order in zone 2, middle blocker 2 in zone 3, the opposite in 4, outside hitter 2 in 5, and middle blocker 1 in 6.

In rotations with the setter on the back row (rotations 1-3), the base defensive positions place the front row outside in 4, the front row middle in 3, and the opposite in 2. The setter is in 1, the back row outside is in 6, and the libero (or the back row middle when serving) is in 5. In rotations with the setter in the front row, the setter and opposite trade places. This places the players where they need to be when transitioning to and from offense with as little unnecessary movement as possible.

See also:
Zones of the Court

Volleyball Basics are intended to present some of the fundamental volleyball knowledge that everyone serious about the sport should know.

13 Is A Magic Number

Tonight's NCAA regional quarterfinal between Kansas and USC had me thinking about the idea of 13 kills being a sort of magic number (see here and here). Get that and you are going to have a good chance to win the set. Similarly, hold the other team to 10 kills, or be +3 kills when comparing your kills per set to their kills per set. So how did the teams do?

Kansas vs USC
Kansas took the first two sets, 11-9 in kills for a +2, and 12-10 for another +2. USC took the next two, 18-11 (+7) and 14-13 (+1). The final set went to Kansas, 10-9 (+1). 13 kills per set scales down to 8 kills per set on a 15 point set.

Texas vs Florida
Florida took sets 1 and 4, 15-13 (+2) and 15-12 (+3). Texas took sets 2 and 3, 16-17 (-1) and 15-11 (+4). The final set went to Texas 11-9 (+2).

Minnesota vs Hawaii
Minnesota took sets 1, 2, and 4, 16-12 (+4), 12-9 (+3), and 20-16 (+4). Hawaii won their set 22-15 (+7).

Nebraska vs Washington
Nebraska took sets 1, 3, and 4, 11-10 (+1), 19-12 (+7), and 20-13 (+7). Washington took their set 15-12 (+3).

On 18 total sets played this round, each set winner outscored the other team in kills with one exception. Six total sets had the winning team with less than 13 kills, but two of those were fifth sets. Ten sets were won with 3 or more kills separating the teams. Losing teams managed to collect more than 10 kills 13 times. It's a small sample, but scoring 13 or more kills per set resulted in a win 75% of the time when removing fifth sets. Having at least 3 more kills than the other team resulted in a win 55.6% of the time. Achieving both standards resulted in a win every time. After removing the fifth sets, there are only the sets where a team was held to 10 or fewer kills. Each of those three sets were lost by those teams held to no more than 10 kills. That will probably be the toughest standard to achieve. This round of the tournament seems to support the standard of 13 kills per set, holding the other team to no more than 10, and getting at least 3 more kills than the other team.

Sitting Volleyball And Skill Transfer

John Kessel's blog post from September 22, 2014, Top Ten Reasons for a Club to do Sitting Volleybal Training,  showed up in my social media feed today. If you're unfamiliar, sitting volleyball is a variation of volleyball for players with physical impairments. Unlike other sports variants, sitting volleyball is not played from a wheel chair. There are videos of it on YouTube worth watching.

In the blog post, Kessel gives these reasons to break out sitting volleyball for your team:

1. Fun

2. A break from jumping

3. Empathy/awareness for them for disabled/Paralympic sport

4. Get them to be talent scouts for any possible future Paralympians

5. Gets you to use your overhead skills well

6. A way to keep lower limb injury teammates bonded/playing with the team at times

7. Practice arm movement for blocking but no need for a "box"

8. Speed up reading of opponent's upper body - net at 1.15m and court half the length of regular makes for FAST ball net crossing/arrival

9. A great leveler for tall to short - and parents can play too

10. Fun

I can't speak to 1 and 10, but I can't find fault with it. I imagine it would be a lot of fun. 3 is valuable for us as human beings. 4 just seems unlikely to be a reality. I think these are reasons to play sitting volleyball that are outside of immediate concerns and goals of the players and coaches.

2 and 6 are interesting. Overuse injuries are a real concern for coaches and players. Too much jumping can lead to patellar tendonitis and every time you land is another chance for a rolled ankle or worse. This isn't unique to volleyball, but leg and shoulder overuse injuries are a significant concern for front row players. These are closer to immediate concerns and goals of players and coaches. Similar to 2 and 6, using it as a leveler for short, tall, and even parents (number 9 on the list) would be a fun way to include everyone in the sport.

That leaves 5, 7, and 8 as reasons to play sitting volleyball in our practices that more closely approach addressing concerns and goals of players and coaches. It would get you to rely on overhead skills more, arm work would be much more important at the net in blocking (and hitting), and you would need to be faster reading your opponent's upper body. These are all worthwhile and desirable outcomes. The problem is do they transfer?

Skill transfer is greatest when the practice is specific to performance in competition. Basketball players commonly can shoot 10 free throws in a row, but hitting that one or two in a close game situation are elusive. How many times does a basketball player need to hit 10 free throws in a row? How many times in a game is that player going to shoot free throws in such a favorable environment (thinking mainly about the pressure of the situation here and not crowd noise or other external factors)? Our athletes need to develop the basic mechanics of the skill (lots of reps) and also they need to develop the ability to execute that skill in competition. Overhead skills are going to be developed, but the demands of sitting volleyball will best train those abilities in ways that will make little impact on the traditional game. A typical overhead pass in sitting volleyball will probably not get the ball high enough to let a standing teammate then use an overhead pass or hit a down ball. Any improvement in arm movement in blocking will still not address any footwork or eyework at the net. The visual cues the player reads in sitting volleyball will be only a small portion of the overall skill to read hitters in traditional volleyball, if they are the same at all. In some players at least, I'm sure the visual cues a hitter displays in sitting volleyball will be different. Sitting volleyball is going to be fun, it is going to be inclusive, and it will be a nice break from standard training, but I think it is a disservice to think of it as an effective training method.

Should you use sitting volleyball with your team? That is entirely up to you. It probably will be fun and appropriately represent the 7 of 10 reasons in the list that are independent of skill development. If you are doing it for those 3 reasons related to skills, you are probably better served doing something else much more specific to the game you will be playing in competitions. Those three reasons are really what bothers me about suggestions like this, especially when it comes from a respected coach and teacher. This kind of approach is why a lot of ineffective training methods persist. It's why a lot of teams do a lot of silly drills and then under-perform in competitions. It is hard to elevate the game when these ideas stick around. Play sitting volleyball to have fun. Just don't expect your team to get better because of it.

Does A Coach Have To Be A Great Player

There is a common belief that a great player will make a great coach, but is it true? I have long thought that it is not true. Going back to statistics and learning about probabiliy distribution, each skill or trait should have a distribution where the elite skill is only present in a small percentage of the population. A specific combination of skills and traits will therefore be even less likely. Simplified, if elite passing is present in 2% of the population, elite passing and elite hitting will be present in 2% of 2% (or 0.04%) of the population. The greater number of skills, the less likely that combination is present in the population.

Then comes coaching. I think it is common for people to think that playing ability equates to coaching ability. Coaching is a completely different animal. Some players are good at a skill, but they might not know how to describe what they do, or how they do it. They might not be able to teach how to do it. What they do might be instinctive. I remember hearing a sound clip of Brett Favre thanking Ty Detmer in an interview or press conference for teaching him what the Cover 2 defense was. Favre was a future Hall of Fame quarterback, and Ty Detmer was his backup who only played in 7 games during their time as teammates.

Coaching is a complex stew of skills. Knowing the fundamental skills of your sport is important, but being an elite player and having the skills to be an elite coach is going to be ridiculously unlikely. While not approached from this theoretical base, this article about Barry Bonds on fivethirtyeight.com demonstrates this idea with numbers. It's a nice treatment on the subject using baseball's massive collection of stats. It takes advanced playing stats of Baseball hitting coaches who played major league baseball and an advanced stats measure of team hitting stats versus their expected stats.

As theory predicts, there is no correlation between playing ability and coaching ability. In fact the plot looks like just another way to visualize the probability distribution. There are a lot of hitting coaches who were poor players relative to the rest of the population evaluated. There are fewer hitting coaches who were great players. Average improvement over expectations for team performance is pretty close to zero. The line on the graph indicating that average actually drops slightly below zero improvement as the coach's playing ability increases. This suggests that hiring a stud hitter as a hitting coach will most likely result in no improvement over the previous hitting coach. It almost suggests that hiring the stud hitter will actually result in a decline. The best hitting coach was a pretty poor hitter compared to the rest of the sample.

The take home message is that coaches shouldn't worry about how good of a player he or she was. It is more important to learn and improve in those skills specific to teaching the game, and improving your knowledge base.

Micah Christenson's CEV Top Play

Top Play: Micah Christenson
By the beard of Zeus, what was that!? LUBE Volley's Micah Christenson delivers a top play, that you have never seen before! Watch today's #CEVChampionsLeagueM matches LIVE on LAOLA1.tv -> bit.ly/CEV_LiveCEV - Confédération Européenne de Volleyball #Volleyball
Posted by LAOLA1.tv on Thursday, December 3, 2015

I just saw this video clip floating around today on social media. Micah Christenson makes a great play for his Italian team. The pass on serve receive was bad, and he had no chance to set. What I really like about what he does is that as soon as the ball goes over the net, he identifies the hitter and is watching the hitter (Ball-Setter-Ball-Hitter). The end result is a seriously broken play is converted to a point.

Sending the Right Messages

This morning I saw there was a new post on my favorite volleyball blog asking, "What is your message?" I have not seen the video in question, but it is an interesting observation. I think it is especially timely now as the girls' high school volleyball season is winding down and the club season is starting up.

Everything we can do as a coach will send some sort of message. If we aren't conscious of it, that message might not be the one we want it to be. Approach coaching in practices and matches deliberately. Take a step back and examine what message you are sending whether consciously or unconsciously. If necessary have another coach or some other observer provide input and insight. I think in many ways this might be more important than anything else we might do with skill development, practice planning and implementation, or match strategy and tactics.

Volleyball Basics - Offensive Tempo

Offense in volleyball can be said to be "in system" or "out of system". In the most fundamental terms, in system offense is when there is a perfect serve receive pass, and the setter can set any available hitter he or she wants. The basic volleyball offense will have the middle hitting in zone 3, the outside hitter in zone 4, and the opposite hitting in zone 2. The back row outside hitter will also be available to hit in zone 6. When in system the setter can set at a variety of tempos. This dictates the speed at which hitters make approaches and when they can hit. The objective of setting at different tempos is to force opposing blockers to make quick decisions about who to block and where. The desired outcome is that hitters will have at most one blocker to contend with when attempting to hit.

First Tempo

A first tempo set, also called a quick, is the first set that could be hit starting from the time of the set. This is an in system set requiring a good, usually perfect pass. Middles hit first tempo sets in zone 3 although some teams stretch the area of possible first tempo sets into zones 4 and 2. A first tempo set is sometimes described as a set where the hitter has to be in the air or jumping at the time of the set.

Second Tempo

A second tempo set is a set that is also in system. Second tempo sets are faster sets to zones 2 and 4, but sometimes a second tempo set could go to a hitter moving into zone 3 or the back row hitter in zone 1 or 6. A second tempo set is a set that is set at a fast enough pace that a blocker jumping on a first tempo attacker cannot also jump on the subsequent second tempo set. This is the key to second tempo sets. Even if the second tempo set is going to zone 3 or 6, a blocker jumping on the first tempo attacker cannot also attempt to block the second tempo attacker, even if the blocker doesn't need to move laterally along the net to be in the right position.

Third Tempo/Out of System

Third tempo sets are times when the setter is out of position or has a bad pass and the blockers will have an easy time determining who is going to be set. At the same time a set to zone 2 or 4 that is high enough will allow the opposing middle to jump with a first tempo attacker and still make it outside to assist with a double (or triple) block. This is a third tempo set even though the pass was good and there was a quick attempt. Third tempo sets with a good pass are not desirable when running a fast tempo offense.

The key (beyond the perfect pass to start things all) to running a fast offense is to keep the first and second tempo sets close enough together in pace that blockers cannot attempt to block both the first tempo attacker and the second tempo attacker. This by extension dictates that you limit the amount of third tempo sets.

There is a video on YouTube (loud music warning) of several in system sets that shows just how potent this can be. There are times where all three second tempo attackers are starting their approaches at almost the same time in their respective zones (front row outside in 4, back row outside in 6, and opposite in 1 or 2). There are some good examples of the first tempo attacker pushed out into zone 4 where blockers cannot block both. There are also some good examples of a first tempo attacker and second tempo attacker in 6 with virtually the same result even though the blocker would really only have to jump again immediately. In some of these the blocker is still able to attempt a block mostly by virtue of being tall enough to block without jumping.

Run as fast an offense as you can. The way it can limit and hinder opposing defenses can be significant. It can result in higher hitting efficiencies and more free balls when there are digs because defenders are more likely to be caught out of position.

See also:

Zones of the Court

Volleyball Basics are intended to present some of the fundamental volleyball knowledge that everyone serious about the sport should know.

Book Review - The Talent Code

I've been thinking about this one for a few weeks. I finished it a little while ago, and didn't know whether to do this all in one shot, or do a multi-part review. In that time I gave it another read. It's not that long, and it is worth it. I will probably give it a third read before too long. Ultimately I've decided to go a little light on what I could cover here. I might revisit it at a future date, or I might just suggest reading it yourself. Definitely read it yourself.

The Talent Code is a nice addition to any coaching library. There is a lot of great stuff here. The recurring theme of the book is that myelin is central to skill development, and that neurons are myelinated by repeated attempts at a skill. The proverbial 10,000 hours of deliberate practice required to become an expert at something is all about myelination. Even without all the talk of myelination, it is a very insightful and valuable book.

There are three parts of skill acquisition as described in this book. They are deep practice, ignition, and master coaching. Reworded they are the individual's work and effort to develop skill, the motivation to put in and maintain that work, and the coach or teacher who guides that work and effort. I could probably write a lengthy post about each of these three topics.

Deep practice is where all of the myelination happens. There are a lot of thoughts I had while reading this part about applying this to volleyball practice. One of the key points of this part is that simply rehashing a skill you have already mastered over and over is not going to help you improve. Deep practice is about pushing limits and trying to do things that are hard. A simple analogy can be found in weight lifting. If an individual can lift 100 pounds 10 times regularly, the individual is not going to increase in strength by continuing to lift 100 pounds 10 times at every training session. For a volleyball example, a player might first not be able to properly execute a jump serve. The player attempts to jump serve properly and makes adjustments until able to execute the skill. Then the player tries to successfully jump serve to a particular gap in the serve receive formation, or increase the speed or topspin of the jump serve. Deep practice is about fine tuning that control and ability.

Another aspect of deep practice that I thought about is the use of video in teaching. Video is often employed to show the player the performance of the skill and gives the coach the opportunity to show and correct technical errors. There was mention of a young tennis player in the book who performed a skill (I think it was a one handed backhand) in an unusual manner. The player, parents and coach didn't have any idea where that peculiarity came from. It turned out that the player watched a lot of a particular professional player's matches and was unconsciously imitating that player's technique. There was mention of how much more information can be communicated subconsciously visually. I don't remember the numbers but it was several orders of magnitude higher than verbal communication. A good collection of technically sound skill performance could be a valuable training aid. Modelling proper technique is a strongly established teaching method in motor learning. Providing a good video of a professional player performing the skill that the player can watch over and over at will could be a much more effective training aid than one of the coaches doing the same in the gym.

The book suggests deep practice can be accelerated. There is mention of putting in mental effort into thinking about what you just did, why the result is what it was rather than the desired result, and what needs to be done to get the result you want. It is an intensive effort. I long ago heard the suggestion to ask "how did that feel?" after a perfect execution of a skill. It's a way to help ingrain the right way to perform a skill in the athlete's mind. The book seems to support this concept. A possible volleyball application of this idea paired with the visual learning concept is to have players watch their opponents during warm up hitting lines. The goal would be to have the players guess which way the setter is going to set and make their first move to play the appropriate defensive play. Blockers would try to anticipate the set and make the first step to the right for a set to 4, or a step to the left for a set to 2. Just watching hitting lines when the other team is warming up for a match will give your team a lot of reps with immediate feedback on their results at close to game speed.

A very interesting example of deep practice was the discussion of Brazillian soccer. The book credits Brazil's love of futsal for Brazil's world standing in soccer. Futsal is a smaller scale version of soccer with fewer players and less space. Players have to deal with defenders more often and in closer quarters. They have to be able to make good passes. But the real reason it is helpful is that players have more opportunities to attempt the skill. They get more reps. They get more touches. This can be accomplished in volleyball in a variety of ways. You can play doubles and triples matches. You can play on half courts. You can extend rallies by introducing extra balls from the side (the serve is a time consuming skill that really shouldn't be sped up). It's all going to get you more skill attempts which results in more myelin and moves you closer to that 10,000 hours.

Ignition is something that serves as the athlete's motivation to continue practicing. Deep practice is more synonymous with work than play. That is a key reason some athletes do better and improve more than others. The ones that improve because they work harder at it are more likely to have experienced ignition. They are more likely to be motivated. An example in the book is a set of students who read an article about a mathematician that was edited to the mathematician shares their birthday choosing to do a harder test than students who read the same unedited article. There was some subconscious ignition or motivation. They associated with the mathematician because of that shared birthday. Something I thought about immediately after reading that part was to make use of shared birthdays with famous volleyball players, or to point out prominent volleyball players who started playing at their age. I recently heard that Matt Anderson started playing volleyball at age 14. Most high school freshman could form that kind of association and this could serve as a source of ignition. The same could be done for a number of characteristics. It might be a good practice to compile a list of prominent volleyball players that are from a certain state, the same height, the same religion, the same ethnic group, or any number of things that you could mention to players on your teams. It could ignite your player's inner drive to work hard and develop skills at a faster pace.

A couple of pieces of research that was mentioned in the book was examining players' views on the activity and another on the way they talk about practice. In the research on how the activity was viewed, when the participant viewed the activity as something they would do for the rest of their lives, they put in more work and improved more. This is something that can be encouraged by the coach. In the other, researchers found that 10% of skill can be predicted by how the participants talk about practice. This is also something that the coach can have some influence on.

Master coaching is more about teaching than a lot of people tend to think. The book mentions a couple UCLA professors who wanted to study teaching and asked to observe John Wooden. What they saw was instructive. There were many demonstrations of teaching within practice. They recorded that 75% of them were pure information. Compliments and statements of displeasure only amounted to about 7% each. The book also mentions master coaches have a matrix of information or domain knowledge. This is something we need to develop as coaches. The first two sections were to me more about methods to develop our athletes. This section was more about ideas for professional development. I thought more about where I measure up and where I lack than particular ideas for helping my athletes. I have less to offer here than with the other sections. Mostly I will just say that specific, targeted instruction, drills, and practice design are going to help our athletes the most. Other than that, encourage effort more than results.

A quote mentioned in the book by Irish writer and playwright Samuel Beckett sums up a lot of the great ideas in here:

“Try again. Fail again Fail better.”

 The Talent Code is a good read. I think this book belongs on every coach's bookshelf, regardless of sport. I highly recommend it, and I will be rereading it in the future.

Volleyball Goals

I just watched this video about 9 goals for the FIVB. These are some pretty ambitious goals, and I think it is pretty gutsy to put these out there for everyone to see. There is some amount of accountability to doing this. It's also a nice bit of organizational transparency that is admirable. The goals are largely outcomes outside of FIVB's control, but I'm sure they will inform FIVB policies and strategies for the next few years.

The video made me think about some of my own goals for volleyball, and Open Source Volleyball in particular. I don't have 9, but there are a few goals I would like to see accomplished over the next few years. Just like the FIVB goals, I have very little direct influence on the outcomes. I can't just flip a switch of desire, hard work, and effort to accomplish any of these. I will work on bringing these to fruition.

1. Improve the volleyball literacy of high school coaches.

In my experience coaching at the high school level, there are a lot of coaches that don't know volleyball. My team competed against teams using systems that I faced as a high school player over 20 years ago. The men's US Olympic team of that era was playing a very different game. They were playing a system that is fairly familiar to this era's international teams. I can't blame my high school coaches for playing an older system. They just didn't have easy access even to videos of Olympic matches.

Today there isn't really any excuse. After just a few seconds of searching on YouTube, I can watch complete matches from past Olympics. I can see current international competitions. I can see college matches streaming live even if I live far away from either team's campus. There is a lot more good information out there.

That is a big reason for why I am doing this site. There is a lot of good information out there that can be valuable to inexperienced coaches, and I would like to provide a home for great information and tools. Some of that I will need to generate, and quantify with data. I like to geek out that way, so it will be something I will enjoy. I did this sort of thing before I wrote any of it up. I do it now while I am not part of a coaching staff. I will do it even if I never step into a gym again to teach my favorite sport.

To a lesser degree I would also like to see some college programs adopt a more modern approach to the game. I see women's volleyball in America as a chaotic mix of old and modern. There are some programs rigidly holding onto an older way of playing. There are some that are adopting more modern systems. The National Team has been playing a much more modern game at least since Hugh McCutcheon led the team. Karch Kiraly has since taken over and continued that evolution. College coaches holding to older systems are doing their players a disservice when it comes time for their players to try out for a spot on the national team. High schools are likewise doing their players a disservice if they are sending their best players up to a college team and they have to learn a new style of play.

2. Bring NCAA Division I men's volleyball to my state.

I love the men's college game. I went to a school that had a men's team, and it was amazing to be a fan at matches every spring. I really enjoyed my time as a volunteer with those teams and the things I learned in practices every day. Now I live in a state with three NCAA Division I schools, and none of them have a men's team. There is a Division II school with a men's team transitioning to Division I, but I have a hard time counting that in this tally. When people think of Arizona college athletics, there are basically three schools people think of. Some will only think of Arizona and Arizona State.

As part of goal 1, I want to get the competitive level of boy's high school volleyball in the state to advance to a point where the three schools will have a discussion about adding the sport. I want to see at least one of the three expanding their programs to include men's volleyball. I want to see enough Arizona athletes going to those schools with men's teams that the local schools will want to try to lure them to stay in state.

3. Encourage the NCAA to raise the number of scholarships from 4.5 to 12 for men's volleyball.

I understand and support the rationale behind Title IX and what it has done for women's college sports. I don't understand or support the blatant reverse discrimination institutionally imposed by Title IX with regards to men's volleyball. I see the 4.5 men's scholarships for a men's volleyball team as a big reason for the presence of men's volleyball in the national psyche. I still come across people who think of volleyball as a "girl's sport". Chances are they went to a college that had a women's team but no men's team.

It is hard to entice athletes to choose to play college volleyball for a fraction of a scholarship when focusing on another sport will not only bring a greater likelihood of a full scholarship, but there will be more schools with teams that can offer scholarship. When I was coaching boy's volleyball and had a player who was a legitimate prospect for a college player, I would have suggested pursuing basketball instead. He would be more likely to get offered a scholarship at a minimum, and it would be much more likely to be a full scholarship. Men's basketball can offer 13 for a team. There are also more NCAA Division I basketball teams (with 13 scholarships each) than there are total NCAA Division I-III men's volleyball team (with a maximum of 4.5 scholarships each. Division III teams don't offer athletic scholarships). By comparison there are around ten times as many NCAA Division I women's volleyball teams (with 12 scholarships each) as there are NCAA Division I men's teams. about three times as many as there are total NCAA Division I-III men's teams.

The current scholarship limits are a real obstacle to the growth of the sport in America. It is an unfortunate example of the law of unintended consequences. It is blatant sex discrimination wrapped in a veil of fighting sex discrimination. I can't change this NCAA policy, but I would like to see this changed. I'm not going to bring this up often. I might not mention it any more after this post. It is something that I think is wrong with the sport, and I would like the NCAA to get out of the way of the growth of the sport.

I know these are entirely out of my control, but I intend to make my part of the volleyball world better. If I can influence new coaches through my efforts here to play a more modern, effective system, then I have done my small part. I hope the game grows and the average product on the court is better at every level. Volleyball is a beautiful sport.

Positive vs Negative Feedback or Regression to the Mean

I saw this video the other day. It is in name about whether punishment or reward is more effective. There are examples of anecdotal experiences with one or the other being more effective. I really like science, and this YouTube channel has a nice accessible approach to presenting science. It's also interesting to me as a coach for a couple reasons.

The obvious being that we have all been on teams or have had coaches where punishment was used as a primary method of improving performance. Maybe we are that coach. That coach has their own anecdotal evidence for that method of coaching. Hopefully we have also been in the opposite situation where reward has been used to encourage improved performance. This coach probably has some anecdotal experience, but they also happen to have empirical evidence backing them. In short, we all have anecdotal evidence backing our approach, but some approaches also have empirical evidence. The ones that are empirically backed are better, no matter what our anecdotal evidence says.

I also find it interesting because of the idea of regression to the mean as an explanation for some of that anecdotal evidence. I think we can use this information as coaches. Thinking about volleyball in statistical terms, every player has an average performance level for each skill of the game. The same could be said for team performance. There is going to be some variance in performance, and there is going to be a distribution of performance in each of the skills. Most of the time the attempts to perform the skill are going to be within a certain range. As the player improves, the average changes in a favorable direction, and the standard deviation is going to shrink, meaning less variance. Running this through the idea of the regression to the mean, when a player has an above average skill performance, the next performance will likely be closer to the average performance. It isn't always going to be this way, but over time more often than not, the subsequent attempts will be closer to the average. This is going to happen independent of other factors. If the player has improved significantly, the great performance will not have as big of a regression to the mean as in the past. One of our key objectives in helping players develop is in improving the mean. A great single instance of skill performance by itself is not an indication of improvement. One bad set is not a sign of danger, but multiple bad matches might be. When looking at performance, don't just evaluate the last match. Evaluate the last few.

Similarly, when looking at team performance, it's probably best to have the big epic set win come at the end of the match. I know, this is not something we can just choose to do. Looking back to NCAA men's national championships, there were two consecutive years where the same team won long sets. The first instance has BYU winning the first set 44-42. Even with sets going to 30 points that is a marathon set. They went on to lose the next two sets and eventually the match. Here we have a huge effort to win a set. Regression to the mean suggests there is going to be a let down just because of statistical probability. They played above average and then they played closer to average. Other team motivation, emotional let down, and every other reason sports commentators might mention may or may not be a factor, and they probably weren't a factor. It's just the tendency to get your team average with repeated attempts. The following year BYU won the 5th set 19-17, right after winning the 4th set 32-30. You could even look at Long Beach State's 30-15 1st set win as an above average performance where they will regress to the mean with a simultaneous regression to the mean for BYU's below average 1st set performance. Again, this is likely just a statistical phenomenon. It says nothing about team motivation or player character and toughness.

How can we use this as coaches? Our first concern is to help our players and team develop and structure practices to improve the average performance. Find out what statistical measures are most important indicators of success and measure performance in those stats. We want our players to improve and bring up those averages. I think this is where the competitive cauldron is a valuable tool. Second, when we are in a match we need to keep in mind that there is probably going to be a regression to the mean in performance, both good and bad. This is when coach as a psychologist or therapist comes into play. Someone does something incredible, and they will probably not be able to keep it up. Likewise, when someone commits an error, they will probably do better in subsequent attempts. We need to be our players' biggest cheerleader. Help them keep an even keel and not get too down when they regress to the mean. Help them to weather the storm.

The video mentions Thinking, Fast and Slowby Daniel Kahneman. It's a book about our two systems for thinking that are fast and slow. I'm partway through right now, and I just got to the part about regression to the mean (which mentions the Israeli fighter pilots the video talks about). There is a lot of good information for coaches to consider that should influence how we teach skills and coach players. There is also a lot of good information about cognitive biases and heuristics that will serve useful in evaluating what we look at in our efforts to improve our methods and how we are as coaches.

Thinking About Team Goals During Competition

I've written recently about a kills per set goal that might put a team in a good position to win the set. It has been on my mind a little since I wrote that, and it came up in my mind again while watching a college football game this weekend.

During the broadcast there was a graphic on screen with some stats for one of the teams. It showed the teams "Pillars" and showed the win-loss record when the team succeeded in that goal or standard. I couldn't find any mention elsewhere on the internet about those actually being team goals. It was a graphic with a sponsorship logo in the corner, so I can only imagine either the sponsor or the network compiled some stats and posted them for profit. I am aware of a time or two where broadcasters say something authoritatively, but speaking with the coaching staff says something different. I don't know that the coaching staff does have these standards, but the stats themselves were very interesting and best closer examination.

The first "Pillar" was to score 24+ points per game. That's pretty straightforward. The goal of most sports is to score more than the other guy. I don't know what the average football team scores, but 24 seems like a fair enough number. That adds up to the touchdowns and a field goal. Score more than that and you're doing pretty good. The team had a record of 81-12 when scoring 24+. That's a healthy 87%.

The second was to hold the other guys to 24 or fewer points. Taken together with number 1 it's obvious. 78-11 for 88% when the defense meets its standard.

Third is to score first. This one is less obvious to me, and much less applicable to a sort like volleyball where every play should end with a point. In a low scoring defensive battle in football, the first team to score might just be the only team to score. The team managed a 67-9 record for an 88% win percentage. That made me curious about how true this is with all football teams. I found this, suppressing primarily about professional football, where the writer factored in team quality. When the teams are considered equal, the team that scores first (touchdown) wins 2/3 of the time. That's a pretty big deal.

Next is to score every quarter. With the first goal in mind, this is a simple way to break that bigger goal into smaller, more manageable chunks. It also could be about consistent effort through the whole game. This one only gave the team a 43-8 record. At 84% this is the lowest of the five "Pillars", but that is still a favorable outcome.

Last is for the defense to score points. That's only going to happen with an interception run back for a touchdown, a fumble recovery run back for a touchdown, or a safety. These are all big plays, and are rare. The numbers bear this out. At 17-2 this is by far the smallest number of games, but the 89% is the highest winning percentage.

Putting these into volleyball terms and numbers might be interesting. It could be a simple goal sheet that players could use as mile posts on their way to a set win. The first two could easily be rewritten as the 13 kills per set and holding the opponent to 10 kills per set I've previously mentioned (link above). I'm pretty happy with those two as a starting point.

I'm not sure what to do with the other standards. I'm not satisfied that other stats correlate strongly enough to winning to use them as a basis by themselves. It might be good to use streaks of consecutive points. Instead of being the first to score, be the first to score 3 consecutive points. I don't have any kind of data on scoring steaks on competition, so I don't know how this will serve as a standard. Limiting opponent's streaks might be another place to go. Again, I don't have any kind of data to guide here.

I'm going to have to think about this more. I might have to add scoring steaks to the data I will collect in the future. What are your thoughts?

Perfection in Sports

Remember the Titans was on the other night. I love the movie and think it is kind of required viewing for cultural literacy, but I also like it for the depiction of sports and coaching. I like setting high expectations for my teams. I know those expectations will not always be met, but it is wonderful to watch what can happen when the team buys in to those expectations, works hard, and believes in themselves.

There is an exchange during the movie that really resonated with me. To the coach in me this is one of the most beautiful moments in the movie. But first some context:

Coach Boone: We will be perfect in every aspect of the game. You drop a pass, you run a mile. You miss a blocking assignment, you run a mile. You fumble the football, and I will break my foot off in your John Brown hind parts and then you will run a mile. Perfection. Let's go to work.

That is a high expectation. I think there is room to criticize the delivery and consequences, but that is a high expectation. This is the practice environment and the team culture that Coach Boone established. The team responded and had a very strong season.

Coach Boone: It's all right. We're in a fight. You boys are doing all that you can do. Anybody can see that. Win or lose... We gonna walk out of this stadium tonight with our heads held high. Do your best. That's all anybody can ask for.

Big Ju: No, it ain't Coach. With all due respect, uh, you demanded more of us. You demanded perfection. Now, I ain't saying that I'm perfect, 'cause I'm not. And I ain't gonna never be. None of us are. But we have won every single game we have played till now. So this team is perfect. We stepped out on that field that way tonight. And, uh, if it's all the same to you, Coach Boone, that's how we want to leave it.

Coach Boone paraphrases John Wooden really well here. They are in the middle of a tough game, and things aren't looking good for the good guys. Coach Boone is at that place where the expectations are there, but the only thing the team can do is give their best effort. Expectations and reality are at odds. Then one of his players steps up and shows real leadership and character. He's going to dig deep and do more. They all are. And every once in a while those expectations are met. Perfection.

Book Review - Coaching Volleyball Champions

I just finished reading Coaching Volleyball Championsby Mary Dyck and Ard Biesheuvel, a couple of volleyball coaches in Canada. It contains 11 chapters, each focusing on a successful volleyball coach from the US and Canada. The format for each chapter is a biographical introduction to the focal coach, the coach's answers to the same series of questions, and then 5 drills that the coach uses.

I'm much more familiar with the American coaches than the Canadian ones, but there are some great ones representing the USA: Marv Dunphy of Pepperdine, Carl McGown retired from BYU, Al Scates retired from UCLA, and Jim McLaughlin of Notre Dame (Washington at the time of publication). Dunphy and McGown are my coaching heroes, and McLaughlin and Scates have significant coaching credentials.

Each coach is asked questions like "What is a champion?" and "What are the most important ingredients of a championship team?" They are asked about psychology, motivation, goal setting, how their coaching has evolved, and thoughts on the different positions. There is a part of me that wishes the answers to each question from each coach were all in the same place, but having each chapter focus only on one coach gives a better sense of who he or she is. You can get a feel for who they are and what they do. You can see how the coach's philosophy informs the drills they use.

The selection of drills is not exhaustive, but it is a nice collection of drills used by some of the top teams in American and Canadian volleyball. There are 55 total drills and there is a handy drill finder in the back listing which drills address various desired training outcomes or topics.

Coaching Volleyball Champions is a very nice volleyball coaching resource. It can help with the practical side of coaching with the drills, and the more theoretical or abstract part of coaching with the question/answer portion. I highly recommend this for your coaching bookshelf and education.

Kills Per Set Needed To Win

I've been collecting data on the 2015 NCAA Men's Volleyball season. In the past I have seen how different stats have correlated with the order of finish (specifically in the MPSF) and want to collect more data to see how things have changed over time. When I first saw these about 15 years ago, the stats with the strongest correlation coefficient were serve receive errors and efficiency. This translates to the teams who have the fewest serve receive errors and have the best efficiency finish highest in the conference, and the relationship between them is almost at a 1st in the stats = 1st in the order of finish, 2nd in the stats = 2nd in order of finish, etc.

One of the first things I noticed this time around is that the stat that correlated most was kills per set. First, this is a change from the earlier top spot being efficiency. Secondly, this goes well with what I observed when looking at how points were scored in set wins at the 2015 FIVB World League (see here). In the MPSF example, the top team had an average of almost 14 kills per set. This is for wins and losses, and doesn't take into account either sets with more than 25 points, or fifth sets to 15. In World League the set winners were right around 13 per set based on 25 point sets. It looks like 14 is a really solid standard to have as a goal to win sets. Also in the MPSF data, the difference between kills per set and opponent kills per set correlated fairly well, but not nearly as strongly as kills per set alone. The difference for the top team was about 3.

There is a lot more that I need to digest in this, but it looks like aiming for 13 kills per set and holding the other guys to 10 per set will leave your team in a very strong position to win.

Book Review - Two by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers: The Story of Success is a book by Malcolm Gladwell talking about people who are outliers, or individuals who are outside of a standard statistical distribution. The book talks about elite athletes in professional sports, the Beatles, and guys like Bill Gates and Robert Oppenheimer. Outliers have some advantageous situation that gives them an edge in their arena.

Of interest to coaches especially is the part about Canadian hockey. The central thesis is that in youth hockey leagues there is an advantage to being born just after the calendar based age cut off. Those athletes are going to be at the older end of potential players. This translates to being bigger and stronger, and it therefore means these kids are more likely to get picked for the more competitive travelling teams. These kids get extra practice time, more games played during the season, and they theoretically play against tougher competition. As the years go by, this advantage compounds. What starts as a size gap becomes a skill gap.

I kept going back to this throughout the book. I imagine this is a possible reality of club volleyball. High school probably hides this phenomenon with multiple years of athletes on the same team. Still this is something to keep in mind. Does the varsity squad get an inordinate amount of practice time compared to junior varsity? Is there something that can be done to mitigate this in the name of improving the program?

Another aspect of outliers is that they have some unique access to resources or some unusual opportunity. Speaking to this he talks about the Beatles having the opportunity to play hours long gigs over days and weeks. In this opportunity they played live over a thousand times for hours on end. Most aspiring musicians never get close to this kind of opportunity to play live. This speaks to the popular notion of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice being needed to become an expert at s specific skill or field. Based on a 40 hour work week, this amounts to 5 years of full time effort to attain mastery. I don't know how well researched this idea is, but I think it has value regardless. Mastery takes time. Whether or not those 10,000 hours are a hard and fast rule, it takes time to become an expert. Stripped down to its bare bones there are only about 6 skills in volleyball (serve, serve receive, setting, hitting, blocking, and digging), and the breakdown of when one skill is needed over another is fairly obvious, but it is going to take a lot of reps to improve in each of those skills to the point of mastery. The take home here is that coaches need to give players opportunities to get reps in the skills. Motor learning tells us that we can perform the skills better if we practice them in game like conditions. Give your players good reps early and often.

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants is another one dealing more with perceived disadvantages and how they can sometimes become advantages. Of particular note in this book is the story of a girls basketball team. The team was small, and not very skilled. The coach took his own set of understanding and observations that were outside basketball orthodoxy and coached his team of small, inexperienced girls close to a championship. He did things very differently. It was so different that sometimes other coaches and parents would sometimes get angry with his coaching decisions. If he played a conventional game as their opponents expected, they would have been soundly defeated every time.

I took from this the thought to look at what my teams can and can't do, and to then look for ways I can leverage those strengths to beat teams that might otherwise be favored to win.

Another thought brought up in one book or the other, IQ is an advantage to a certain point. After that point the graph of the advantage for the next IQ point levels off. Likewise, height is an advantage in basketball, but after a point the advantage flattens. The same sounds reasonable for volleyball. Is there really that much of a difference between a 6'8" middle blocker and a 7' middle blocker? Both can reach over the net without jumping. Both can reach higher than most hitters can reach on a spike. Hitters that can reach higher than that aren't often set to take advantage of that additional reach, and jumping that high that often will fatigue hitters faster. The 7' player will be able to block a bigger area of the net because of reach, but that is going to be situation, and the advantage infrequent. A 6'8" middle with great speed, reading ability, and decision making is still going to have an advantage.

I really enjoyed both books. They are written in the same style, and with the same authorial voice, and in many ways I can't remember what examples come from one book as opposed to the other. I can't speak to the accuracy of the ideas expressed, but they are good food for thought. You might enjoy them and get something useful to use in your coaching as well. I think they are worth a look.

Mental Checklist for Setters

I really enjoy Mark Lebedew's At Home On The Court blog. Every once in a while he posts a gem from the past, like links to videos of old Olympic volleyball matches. It is a great blog to follow for student's of the game. Today's post, Setter's Rules - Match, details what a setter he played with did when he went into a match. It's a sort of mental checklist for setters. Like he says, it isn't going to guarantee that you will win every match, but it is a good place to be. There is a component of the knowledge your setters should have before a match, things to watch for during warm ups, and then how to implement them during the match. Whether you're a setter or a coach, take a look. It will be helpful. I'm sure other positions would be well served developing a similar mental checklist for the demands and responsibilities of the position played.

Lesson from Karch's Timeout

I was watching the USA vs Brazil match yesterday in the 2015 FIVB Grand Prix, and there was a mic on Karch Kiraly during one of the timeouts. I've enjoyed some of the articles, quotes and stories I've heard about his coaching, so I was listening. He looks at one of his players and says something like, "What are we looking at?" The player then takes on an expression of a student trying to recall information when put on the spot in class, and she says something to the effect of, "We have 4 here, 2 here, and watch for 8 coming around." while pointing where they would appear on the net.

I know I have the numbers wrong, but that doesn't really matter. Rather than giving the scouting report on what the opposing team will have available, and something of their tendencies, he went to one of his players. This was a beautiful statement on what he does as a coach. There is a scouting report on the opponent. The players know the scouting report. The players know there are expectations of them, and they rise to those expectations. I think this really speaks to the team culture he has instilled.

This isn't necessarily something everyone will be able to do. High school coaches aren't going to have the resources, and probably time, to put together and teach a scouting report, but we can still think along similar lines. Teach the team and expect them to respond. Let them know those expectations are there. Let them rise to the expectations. Build a culture of success.

Point Distribution for Set Wins

Something intersting in Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game is the idea that winning X number of games should put the team in the playoffs. I don't recall the specific number, and it will be highly specific to American major league baseball, but the idea in interesting to me. I think it is one that might have application in volleyball.

Some years ago I saw a coaching video by an NCAA Division I women's volleyball coach saying that on average W out of 25 points come from kills, X from blocks, Y from aces, and Z from opponent errors. I don't recall the exact numbers, but I believe the number of kills was around 16 or 17. I hadn't thought about it that much in the meantime, but Moneyball jostled things a bit in my brain. Because I don't remember the specific numbers, and I think the numbers will vary by competitive level, I decided to collect some data to see what these numbers are.

I'm starting with a spreadsheet to collect the data. It's pretty basic. It has columns for kills, blocks, aces, opponent errors, and just for comparison team errors. I'm just collecting that information for the winning team of the set. At the top of the column is the average points per set. At first I was just including sets that ended at 25 so the math would be simple, but I later decided that more data would give a better average. To incorporate more data, but still keep the data relevant and easy to parse and use, I included the score for the winning team in a new column, divided the sum of all kills, blocks, etc by the sum of total points, and multiplied by 25 to get the average kills, blocks, etc for a 25 point set win. I copied the sheet so there is one for FIVB men, FIVB women, NCAA men, NCAA women, high school boys, and high school girls. Thus far I have only entered data for 4 matches from this year's FIVB World League finals. They are USA/Serbia, France/Poland, USA/Poland, and Serbia/France. The FIVB matches have a handy end of set graphic that includes all this data, so it makes gathering the data relatively quick. I don't need to watch a whole match with a clipboard to get it.

The Numbers So Far
4 matches from 2015 FIVB World League

So in the average FIVB World League finals match, the winning team scored 13 points on offense, almost 3 on blocks, and 1 or 2 aces every set. They scored almost 8 points on opponent errors. Assuming a good distribution of sets, the two outsides and the opposite are looking at 3 kills per set each, and the two middles will get about one or two kills per set.

A few things stood out to me. First the number of kills is lower than I thought. I thought that at the level of play going on at World League the number of kills would be closer to 15. In a couple there were 17 and 18, but for the most part they were floating around 10-14. Even the longest set in the data so far with a score of 27 points, the kills are only 14. I thought blocks and aces should be higher as well. Blocking and serving is stronger than what I expect to see at the college level, but I guess covering hitters and serve receive are comparable to the blocking and serving. Opponent errors are higher than I thought it would be, but I think that is probably due to errors being an inclusive category for service and hitting errors.

Comparing team errors to opponent errors is interesting. I don't have anything handy that shows what's happening visually, but there were 5 sets where the winners had more errors than the losers. There were another 3 where the errors were the same. Out of a total of 16 sets, that leaves 8 where the winners have fewer errors than the losers. Conventional wisdom is that you should have fewer errors than your opponent. Yes, half the time that has happened, but almost 33% of the time the losing team committed fewer errors. The two highest kill sets (17 and 18) were two of the sets where the winners had more errors than the losers. Perhaps the more important comparison is between team kills and team errors than the comparison between team and opponent errors.

It will be interesting to see how the point distribution numbers change with more data and at other competitive levels. From what I have seen it looks like a goal of 13+ kills per set and a good ratio of kills to errors will win matches. I'm still debating whether I should go back and include all opponent data. When I collect data for matches that I have to watch and tally the points I will collect it by default. I just don't know if it should end up on the spreadsheet. We'll see. More to come.