Early Thoughts From The 2016 Men's Season

I'm in the process of watching my third match this season. It's Penn State vs Loyola. Loyola is the reigning champion, and Penn State is a fixture in post season play. The match is really bringing home something I noticed in an earlier match I watched this season. The first I saw was BYU vs Loyola, two preseason top 10 teams. BYU in particular is entering the season as the number 1 team. It was a good match. BYU is going to be better than they were last year, and Loyola wasn't expected to repeat. It was a good way to start the season.

The second was Cal State Northridge vs Cal Baptist. CSUN is off to a very strong start with a 4-0 record. CSUN isn't usually one of the big contenders, so I was wondering how good they are. Cal Baptist has been good in the past, but since joining the NCAA I don't think they have been as good as they were as an NAIA team. While watching something stuck out to me. They both seemed to be running a slow offense. The time difference between first tempo sets and second tempo sets was pretty big. I don't know if they would be enough time for a middle to jump with the opposing middle and be able to get back up off the ground to try to block the bic or at the pins, but it was a big enough time gap. When I first figured this out I was wondering if the set I just saw was out of system, but it was still happening in system.

There was a part of me that wondered if I was just thinking of the pace of FIVB play in things like the World League. That was the most recent men's volleyball that I watched, so I figured that might be skewing my perception. I had that experience going from watching World League to watching NCAA women's volleyball, and that was a regional final in the tournament. When I saw that Penn State and Loyola were scheduled to play tonight I knew I would have a good gauge of if I was seeing slow play or if my perception was skewed. Early in the first set I have seen both Penn State and Loyola running a much faster offense than what I saw in CSUN vs CBU. I'm seeing both teams with the middle and the bic hitter both in the air at the same time. That just wasn't happening last night. My initial thoughts watching CSUN was that their perfect record is not going to stand up to the contenders in the MPSF. I would imagine Penn State, Loyola and BYU would all do well against CSUN, just based on offensive tempo.

Comparison of Men's Volleyball Conferences

I just saw this blog post on the Volleymetrics website comparing the three men's volleyball conferences in the NCAA.  For years the MPSF teams have won almost every national championship. The at large team in the tournament has usually been an MPSF team. The rankings are typically skewed in the MPSF's favor. Volleymetrics took a shot at answering which team is objectively better.

They developed a rating on a 0-10 scale for each of the basic skills of volleyball with the exception of setting (serve, pass, set, attack, block, and dig). These were then weighted and an overall score was produced. They did all of this with data without team names to avoid bias.

The data they came up with puts the MPSF as the strongest, followed closely by MIVA. The overall scores are pretty close between the MPSF and MIVA. It is also interesting to look at the conference scores for the different skills. Passing and attack ratings are very close between the three. The MIVA and EIVA have much higher ratings than the MPSF in serving. The MPSF is much higher in blocking than both, and they have a pretty good edge in digs over the MIVA (who have about that same difference over the EIVA).

It's an interesting set of data that I'll have to look at some more. I really wish there was a lot more discussion of the methodology. I would really like to see how the skills are weighted. I would assume digging is weighted higher than blocking and both are weighted higher than serving based on my reading of the data. I would also love to see how the 0-10 ratings were produced for each of the skills.

For a real interesting discussion, I would really like to see this done for women's volleyball teams. Were the Big 10 and PAC 12 really that good in women's volleyball , or did they get a lot of tournament seeds (9 and 7 teams respectively) based on much more subjective criteria?

Best Practices in Practices?

The best way to do anything hasn't been invented yet.
Posted by At Home On The Court on Sunday, January 3, 2016

I saw this on Facebook yesterday, and I started trying to figure out if I agree with it or not. In some ways I agree, and in others I disagree. Agreeing with it seems to suggest that there aren't any established methods or procedures that work in the most efficient way. Reality suggests it is still going to take getting your players the reps they need to develop the skills, have the opportunity to demonstrate their ability, and to put them in game like situations so there is optimal transfer from practice to competition. That part of me says we still need to put in the work and effort with the right feedback and the proper training protocol, and the results will be the best possible results.

That said, do we know that the procedures we use are the best way to do things? With that in mind (and right after reading Lebedew's Facebook post), this part of the movie Alice in Wonderland happened to be playing on TV. How often do we keep using some training protocol when we don't know how effective it is? Do we do something just because that is what our coach did when we were on the high school team? college team? A quick survey of women's teams in the America suggests there are a whole lot of players coming through systems that vary widely. Some teams swing block, others do not. Some have back row players close to the base line, others closer to the middle of the back row. While some of these might reflect players on the roster and their individual strengths and weaknesses, there are enough divergent philosophies and approaches to the team strategy that I don't think  this is the case.

How do we know if what we are doing is the best for the team? I think it starts with measuring the right things. Side out percentage by rotation is a good starting point. Looking at how various stats correlate with winning suggests passing stats, kills, and efficiency. Measure the right things, and track those measures. That will give some idea of if what we are doing is good or working. Beyond that I think we need to evaluate teaching methods. Take the time to learn what are the most effective training protocols per motor learning research. That body of knowledge is growing and evolving. We should be doing the same as coaches, or we run the risk of becoming the dinosaur of a coach teaching something that might not have ever been effective, or if it was, it isn't nearly as applicable in today's game.