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Aggression % | Creating A New Performance Indicator
The Importance of the Attack
I have known for a while that the attack is the most important technical skill that is related to success in volleyball (see link). It makes sense because of this simple premise: to win a league or tournament, you need to win matches. To win a match, you need to win three sets. To win one set, you need to score 25 points before the opponent does. So the ability to score points and not lose points is critical to success in volleyball. The reason why the attack is so important is that most points are won and lost via the attack. You can see in the two charts below that around 70% of points scored are done via the attack and around 50% of points lost (errors) are done via the attack.
For this reason, I coach my teams to be aggressive in attack (team value five: be aggressive). It is the best route to scoring points. Now, when I say aggressive in attack, it doesn’t mean that players should swing hard at every set. I have just posted how tipping the ball can be highly effective. When I say aggressive in attack, I mean players should . When I say aggressive in attack, I mean players should still try to jump and attack still try to jump and attack those non-perfect sets (e.g. sets that are off the net) instead of putting over a free ball. Even if they can only do a standing jump and even if they can only tip the ball. those non-perfect sets (e.g. sets that are off the net) instead of putting over a free ball. Even if they can only do a standing jump and even if they can only tip the ball. I feel you can score more points this way instead of putting over a free ball. I feel you can score more points this way instead of putting over a free ball.
I don’t actually know if this is true statistically. I don’t actually know if this is true statistically. It could be better to put over a free ball (since it’s safe) rather than attempting to jump and swing on bad sets (which could result in more errors). However, I feel the philosophy for the team to be aggressive is the right way to go in terms of a player’s mentality to attack everything.
Measuring Aggression
So how do I know if my team is aggressive? Or how do I know if my team is improving their aggressiveness? To measure this, I created a simple performance indicator called the Aggression %. It is quite a simple calculation:
Aggression % = Attack Attempts/ (Attack Attempts + Free Ball Attempts)
So the Aggression % is simply the percentage of attack attempts over attack attempts plus free balls. So the more you are able to attack the ball that would otherwise have been a free ball, the higher the Aggression %.
So what is a good percentage for aggression? For reference, the chart below shows the aggression % at various levels.
I would say teams should be at a minimum of 80% aggression for the lower level teams and aim towards 90+% aggression for the higher level teams. For men’s teams, you could add a few extra percentage points on top. You can’t really go towards 100% aggression because sometimes you simply can’t set up an attack, e.g. you shank the ball and somebody dived to keep that ball in play so the third touch is just to keep the ball in play. Maybe 95% is towards the upper limit for aggression. It is hard to know what the aggression % should be for your team or league. I would say as long it is higher than your opponents then you are on the right track.
Measuring Aggression Effectiveness
Since I encourage my players to be aggressive in attack, this will inevitably lower the overall hitting % because they are not hitting in ideal situations. This becomes an issue because a player’s hitting % is a major factor when I select players since it’s related to success in volleyball. So how can I differentiate between an aggressive player with a slightly lower hitting % and a non-aggressive player with a slightly higher hitting %? To combat this, I created another performance indicator called the Aggression Efficiency %. It is the percentage of the net points won for both attacks and free ball attempts. It is essentially the hitting percentage for attack and free ball attempts put together. It is calculated as follows:
Aggression Efficiency % = (Attack Points + Free Ball Points – Attack Errors – Attacks Block Killed – Free Ball Errors)/(Total Attack Attempts + Total Free Ball Attempts)
Your Aggression Efficiency % is usually around 1% to 4% lower than your hitting % [=(Kills – Errors)/Attack Attempts]. In general, the higher the aggression %, the smaller the difference between the hitting % and aggression efficiency % is. It’s not a perfect relationship but the chart below broadly demonstrates that.
Use in Practice
I mainly use the aggression stats for my mid-level and lower-level teams. This is where you often see players putting a free ball over rather than attacking the ball. Higher-level teams and players are better at fixing bad sets so it is rare to find a player putting over a free ball when they could have attacked it.
Aggression tends to be an issue early in the season for newer teams I coach. The players don’t know that I want them to be aggressive in attack. I do have drills to encourage the players to attack everything. My target is the aggression % should be at least 80% and higher than the opposition. You can see in the chart below, this has been the case. The only exception is my 2017-18 season with City University London. This was before I really coached aggression.
I don’t use the aggression efficiency % too much. I would only look at it if there were two players that were close in hitting % and the aggression efficiency % would split the difference. Generally, the difference in hitting % is usually enough to distinguish players as aggression % is not majorly different between players.
Final Thoughts
The Aggression % and Aggression Efficiency % are useful performance indicators for the mid-level and lower-level teams who tend to put over free balls on less-than-perfect sets instead of attacking the ball. Teams should have a minimum of 80% aggression and aim for 90% aggression. You may need to add a few percentage points for men’s teams. Certainly, your aggression should be higher compared to your opponents.
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