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How Often is the Score Wrong in Volleyball?
Prologue
Sometimes I would notice the score in DataVolley doesn’t match the official score. I hate it when it happens because it means there’s an error somewhere in the scout and it’ll add extra time in the stat checking process to identify the error and to clean up the timeline (i.e. correct the subsequent scores after the fault). With the help of the scoresheet, you can pinpoint exactly where the error lies. Most of the time it is my fault and it is usually the case that I assigned the rally point to the wrong team.
Occasionally, the error actually lies with the scorer. The latest occurrence happened during the third set of the IBB Polonia London versus Vojvodina Novi Sad Champions League match. Upon looking at the scoresheet and watching the match video, you can deduce that the scorer gave the point to the wrong team and this was only realised a couple of rallies later when the second referee incorrectly called a rotation fault on Vojvodina Novi Sad. You can see on the video (see below) that the scorer and second referee tried to fix the fault on the scoresheet but they did it incorrectly upon examining the scoresheet (see below).
Anyway, this got me thinking how often does this happen? I’ve statted enough matches to know it happens more often than you might imagine. I always thought that it happens about once every five matches. I wanted to see if I was right.
How Often Do Scorers Add Extra or Miss Adding Rally Points on a Scoresheet?
I am able to answer this question because I do actually stat when these types of scoresheet errors happen. I stat it because when I go through the data verification process in DataVolley and it flags up this error (no serve found in rally; serve found in rally), I put in a custom code so I know that I’ve looked into this error already and I don’t need to investigate further. So I compiled all the matches I’ve statted from the past two seasons to see how often scoresheet errors happen. See the table below.
So scoresheet errors occur around once every 4.9 matches or around once every 16.3 sets. So it turned out I was actually pretty much spot on. It’s good to know. So it turned out I was actually pretty much spot on. It’s good to know.
Please Note
I didn’t compile the numbers simply to call out or to put down scorers. I’ve scored many matches and I know that when I don’t pay attention (the match is boring, you’re checking your phone, you’re talking to the assistant scorer, you thought the rally point went to one team but you didn’t see the referee gave it to the other team etc), it can lead to mistakes. You try to fix it but you never really know whether you fixed it correctly. And these are the mistakes that you know about. I’m sure I’ve made a lot more mistakes that I didn’t know about. There are also no recourse for feedback for scorers on these mistakes because it can only be done by checking the play by play via video replay, which nobody will do. Well, except for Performance Analysts.
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