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How Volleyball Statistics Can Help You

Writer: goldenstateservicesj
goldenstateservicesj
Sep 11, 2020
11 min read

I have written a post on why we need volleyball statistics.  I now want to write examples of how volleyball statistics have helped me when making decisions to enhance performance.  You will see that it is not just about the stats but how you used it to your advantage to enhance overall performance.  I put in a chapter list below to make it easier to navigate between the case studies.  




















Decide Who to Start

If you know how technically efficient players are in the skills measured by stats, it can help you decide who you should start.




Case Study: Choosing Between Three Liberos

At one point, Polonia SideOut London had three great liberos to choose between.  I dug up the stats to help Coach Mark Kontopoulos make an informed decision on who he should start (see table below).  Stamp had the best passing stats on the team at that point in the season (1.66) and was passing at the level same for her previous team Tendring VC in the season before (1.64).  Ghisolfi was currently passing below that of Stamp (1.58) but had passed at a much higher level in the season before (1.99).  This meant she had a higher ceiling for passing great but was not in great form.  Tokarczyk is the best passer I have ever statted for Polonia, maybe ever in the Super League or Super 8s (it’s between her and Elizabeth Dowd) but she had not played for a whole year at that point.  With very limited data (only 2 passing attempts), it did show her passing was not too far off her previous level of 2.05.  I made the suggestion that I would start Tokarczyk and convert Ghisolfi back into an outside hitter to solidify the passing unit.  Coach Kontopoulos went with my suggestion but he did make Stamp the defending libero in breakpoint situations and Tokarczyk as the passing libero in sideout situations.

Sept 2017-Feb 18

Total Reception Attempts

Reception Rating

2016-17

Total Reception Attempts

Reception Rating

STAMP

161

1.66

Stamp (Tendring VC)

86

1.64

GHISOLFI

196

1.58

Ghisolfi

158

1.99

TOKARCZYK

2

2.00

Tokarczyk

267

2.05


Case Study: Choosing Between Four Outside Hitters

At City University London, I was lucky enough to have four highly skilled outside hitters.  All of them could play libero too so it added some complexity on who I should start.  I put #12 Constantinou as outside hitter 1 (OH1).  She was the best player of the four and this was confirmed by the stats (best attacker and passer).  I found that #5 De Vito was the best fit as the libero.  She was a true libero (diving for every ball) and she was able to command the passing unit and defence.  I then had two similarly skilled players, #1 Guler and #7 Romagnolo, vying for the second outside hitter spot (OH2).  The stats showed that #7 Romangnolo was the better passer but #1 Guler was the better attacker (before the stats rolled in, I originally thought it was the other way round).  Since I had solid passers in #12 Constantinou and #5 De Vito, I generally started #1 Guler, as I needed more attacking than I needed more passing.  However, it would depend on who was available.

Player

Sets Played

Total Attack Attempts

Hitting Pct.

Total Reception Attempts

Reception Rating

1 GULER

35

69

17%

130

1.45

5 DE VITO

40

99

22%

215

1.73

7 ROMAGNOLO

17

115

11%

76

1.62

12 CONSTANTINOU

45

347

23%

223

1.93


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Converting Players

If you know the player’s strengths and weaknesses, it might indicate that they are better suited to another position or identify who is the best candidate is to fill a position.





Case Study: Opposite to Libero

Polonia struggled in reception in the 2018-19 season (1.40 passing as a team).  We had an opposite player come in midway through the season that I thought could be a great libero.  She was an excellent defender on the beach (she only used the indoor season to get fit for the beach volleyball season) and she had played libero/ outside hitter for another team (Wessex VC) in a couple of seasons previous.  To see if my theory was right, I dug out all of her previous stats from previous seasons (see below).  It showed, although it was based on limited and old data, that she could be our best passer on the team that we were not using.  Coach Kontopoulos made the change and she became our second-best passer on the team (1.70).  In the following 2019-20 season, she was ranked 7th best passer in the entire Women’s Super League (1.79 passing).

Player

Sets Played

Total Reception Attempts

Perfect Passes

Reception Errors

Reception Rating

Polonia SideOut London (2018-19)

28

560

110

107

1.40

14 ADAMEK (Polonia 2018-19)

2

2

.

2

0.00

13 ADAMEK (Polonia 2017-18)

25

19

10

.

2.16

11 ADAMEK (Wessex 2015-16)

19

84

30

7

1.94


Case Study: Opposite to Outside Hitter

I converted two different opposites to outside hitters for two different reasons.  I had one City University London player who came in as an opposite.  From training, you can see she was one of the best players technically and her defence looked rock solid.  I thought if her defence is solid then her passing is probably solid too.  I made this leap and converted her to an outside hitter.  It worked because her stats showed she was the best passer on the team and ended up as one of the best passers City University London has ever had (currently fourth on the all-time list).

In another season, I had an opposite player at City University London who was an attacking beast.  However, the stats showed that while her hitting pct. is high, she didn’t get enough sets.  I felt it was because the team’s passing wasn’t too great and the setter was not always comfortable setting to the right side unless in perfect conditions (I probably could have confirmed it with setting distribution by situation).  I decided to convert her to outside hitter so we could lean into the setter’s tendencies to get her more attack attempts.  She did get more attack attempts and she continued to hit well (currently 5th on the all-time list, 2nd for a wing player).  We did have to work on her passing (she was a true opposite so her passing was not great).

Case Study: Libero to Outside Hitter

At City University London trials, I had a player who signed up as a libero.  You can tell immediately that she could play and would probably be in the starting line-up.  I found she also had a good spiking technique (I made every player spike in the trials) so pretty much at that point, she was my outside hitter.  Her stats showed she was one of my best passers (ranked #1 in total perfect passes of all time) and she could hit too (9th highest hitting pct. on the all-time list).

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Guide You on Playing Systems

You want to have a playing system that maximises your players’ strengths and hides your players’ weaknesses.  This can lead you to convert players to a different position (see above).  It can also lead you to modify a playing system that specifically suits your team.





Case Study: Putting Middle Players in the Passing Unit

At City University London, the team struggled with the passing.  I found that the two starting middle players were good technically and had nice platforms for their forearm dig.  I let them pass in matches and I found that their passing stats were almost as good as the best passers on the team (currently 5th and 6th on the All-Time List for Reception Rating).  Because of this, I left them in the passing unit.  I used the libero to come in for the opposite, who was not such a good defender but was a good attacker.

Case Study: Changing From a 6-2 System to a 5-1 System

When I was coaching the Wales Boys team for the Sainsbury’s School Games back in 2014, I had two players who I thought were fairly even in setting and attacking.  Because of this, I used the 6-2 system so I always had 3 front row attackers.  However, after the first day of the tournament, I statted all three matches and found setter one had better setting statistics than setter two (assist pct: 20% vs 11%).  In addition, setter two had much more attack attempts than setter one (39 vs 8 – the second-most on the team) which inferred that setter one had a better distribution of sets. Another reason setter two had more attack attempts was, upon watching the video, he would still attack bad sets by doing a standing jump and swinging away. All of this pointed to the fact that I should be using a 5-1 system.  It utilised the better setter and the naturally aggressive attacker.  It was a big change since we had not practiced this way in training but the boys agreed with my assessment.  I felt it worked because although we still lost 3 matches on the second day, we played two of our best matches including a close 15-13 loss in the fifth set for 5th vs 6th place.

Case Study: Working Around to Exploit Your Best Attacker

When I started doing stats at City University London as Head Coach, I found that I always had one strong middle attacker who could kill the ball.  This meant I needed to use them as much as I could in the attack to bolster the overall hitting pct.  One way was to start the middle attacker in zone 4 so she would have the most rotations in the front row.  I would also select the best passers statistically in my outside hitter and libero positions so they could put more positive and perfect first contact balls so the middle player can be utilised.  I also coached the setter to use the middle attacker pretty much every time the first contact ball was positive or perfect.

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Help With Tactical In-Match Decisions

Live stats can help you make some tactical in-match decisions that can help you tweak the performance in your favour.  





Case Study: The Team is Struggling in the Pass

It’s a common situation when the team is stuck in a particular rotation.  The live statistics have identified that the team is struggling in the pass.  You have a couple of options to improve the pass depending on who’s playing and who’s on the bench.  You can identify the player with the lowest reception rating and sub that player out for another player who has good passing stats (based on the whole season).  You can also make the opposite pass because you know the opposite can actually pass a bit based on reception stats for the season.  Or it could be early in a match and the team just needs time to get into it and the reception rating will return to the team average (regression to the mean).

Case Study: When To Use (And Not Use) the Serving Sub/ Defensive Specialist

I had a City University London middle player whose strength was blocking but was not such a good server or defender (by observation but backed up by stats).  To hide this weakness, I would sub her out for serve.  The player I used for the serving sub was an outside hitter who had a nasty serve.

We had a similar situation at Polonia SideOut London, where we used a serving sub.  However, one time this middle player was serving really well and even got two aces.  There could be the regression to the mean where she had a couple of good serves but with more attempts, it would go back down to her normal service levels.  However, it looked like she just found a spot that the opposition struggled with (power cross-court).  I showed the live statistics to the coach so she wasn’t subbed out.  The serving sub was instead used on the other middle player.

Case Study: Using a Passing Outside Hitter for the Back Row

IBB Polonia London was in a tense third set.  One of the outsider hitters, Victor De Oliveira, was serving.  His strength is the attack but his weakness is passing (I later learned he was a converted middle player).  I made the suggestion to Coach Simon Loftus to sub in Seain Cook, who is a great passer, to pass when the player loses serve to close out the set.  Seain was not playing because he was coming back from an ankle injury but he did train that week but only passing and not hitting.  Coach Loftus made the substitution, the star outside hitter made some solid passes and Polonia closed out the set and match.

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Scouting the Opposition Team

If you have scouts on the opposition teams then you are in a better position to come up with a game plan to exploit their weaknesses and/ or limit their strengths whilst not compromising your own team’s strengths.




Case Study: Who is Their Weakest Passer?

A simple game plan is to serve on the opposition team’s weakest passer.  It will put the team in poorer situations, limiting their attacking options and organising the block-defence much easier.  My scout on Durham Palatinates showed that they had two of the best passers in the league.  It’s even consistent when I checked back on their data in a previous season.  So the game plan was simple: if both players are in the passing unit, serve on the third receiver.

Case Study: Where Do Players Attack?

Custom alt text

The above is the attack directions for University of Nottingham (UON) two main outside hitters.  You can see that #6 Mann is highly effective attacking line, with about half of her attempts resulting in kills.   There is also a slight tendency to spike line.  You can see that #15 Sawyer tends to hit cross or sharp cross.  I made the suggestion that we should match up our big opposite Ezster to block #6 Mann, in an effort to reduce her line attack effectiveness.  This means our smaller setter Connie is matched up against #15 Sawyer.  Since #15 Sawyer tends to hit cross, it means Connie’s blocking is not such a reliability.  I checked and I found the UON coach tends to use the same starting line-up, which means we could match this up perfectly.  Coach Kontopoulos adopted this strategy and I was vindicated early as Eszter managed to get two block kills on #6 Mann within the first half of the first set.  She didn’t get any more after that but I still take that as a victory.

Understanding Volleyball Better

I have used volleyball statistics to try and answer some wider questions that can help you improve performance in a broader sense.  You can click on this link to read more.

Click on this link to read all the research I’ve done to enhance performance.

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Conclusion

I provided numerous examples of how volleyball statistics has helped me.  You can see that it is not just about the stats themselves but how you used them to your advantage.  Sometimes the stats will indicate a way to enhance performance, e.g. who you should start, the scouting report.  Sometimes you implement an idea first and you see if it worked via the stats, e.g. converting players, passing middles.


 
 
 

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