Final Push to Get the Stats In!

At the start of 2012, I had a bunch of volleyball matches to stat.  13 matches were for the Super 8s, 3 for Team South Wales and 2 for Cardiff Celts.  Last weekend I had a big push to churn out all of the statistics out so I could focus on the academic work.  So what did I learn from this experience?

This is because the workflow is different due to the complexity of the analysis system.  For Team South Wales, I am rating every action according to a scale that usually ranges from 0-4 whereas actions for Super 8s are not recorded in this way.  Cardiff Celts is somewhere in between.  I also had to make a mental note of the slightly different operational definitions.  The way I grade for a perfect pass or dig for the Cardiff Celts (where I am the coach) is different to how I grade for Team South Wales (where their coach has his definition).  Lastly, data input is different with StatEasy (below) as keystroke data entry and Dartfish using the mouse to tag events.

I know from experience that doing things for the first time is a steep learning curve (see blog post entry).  I have never statted for individual players that I did not know AND for both teams.  The first time I did this, it took an astronomical 70 minutes to stat the first set of the first match!  It even took 5 minutes to work out the starting line up.  Practice, creating the efficient workflow and the scoresheet (last blog entry) has reduce this analysis time to roughly half (around 40 minutes per set to stat).

Seriously, only 3 of the 13 matches (23%) were the full match video.  The other 10 had half a set missing or more for one reason or another.  I am the type of person that like things to be whole and complete.  I hate missing data!  Anyway, I have to remember this is a learning process for the teams also.

For information such as player names, results, fixtures, I must frequent this website just as often as Facebook!  Well, that was an exaggeration but you get the picture.  

5.  

Without any evidence whatsoever but it seems that rallies in the men’s game are much shorter (I am sure there is some dissertation investigation the differences between rally lengths between the genders).  The events list reads like this most of the time:

Assist Kill Assist KillThe women’s game has an events list that looks more like this:Set attempt Attack attempt Dig Set attempt Attack attempt Dig Etc.

A lot more digs are involved in the women’s game it seems.

FINALLY

Well, it is back to my day job.  I do have a masters course to complete you know!