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Is it Worth Blocking in Non-Elite Volleyball?
Why Do We Block in Volleyball?
We use blocking in an attempt to prevent a successful opposition attack attempt by rebounding the attacker’s spiked ball back into their court. We can think of the block as an offensive action, as it is an opportunity to score a direct point, or as a defensive action, as part of the overall block-defence strategy a coach sets up, e.g. block line and dig inside or block inside and defend line.
According to USA Volleyball, there are numerous personnel requirements for blockers. The main one is having the physical characteristics to jump and get their hands over the net to intercept the ball that has been attacked. They also noted other personnel requirements, such as good lateral movement, but it becomes a mute point if they can only get partial hands/ fingers over the height of the net on a block jump. USA Volleyball also stated the stronger the opponent’s ability to aggressively attack the ball from all positions, the greater the need to have blockers who can defend against those types of hitters.
So Is it Worth Blocking for Players Who Doesn’t Fulfil the Personnel Requirements for Blocking?
Simply put, it is worth smaller players blocking at all? How effective can they be to rebound any opposition attack attempts if they can only get partial hands/ fingers above the height of the net on a block jump? Would it not be better for those players just to pull back and defend any tipped balls. This way, the player can then defend more area of the court than what any block jump can cover. Also by defending any tipped balls, it releases the player previously responsible for tipped balls to defend deeper for any hard driven spikes. This can further reduce the opposition attack efficiency. The argument for not blocking is you lose too much in defence. However, in non-elite level, you generally don’t face that many aggressive and efficient attackers so the need for blocking is not as strong compared to at elite level.
This is the exact dilemma I have when coaching City University London (CUL) Women’s 1st team. We have a lot more smaller players (compared to Polonia SideOut London) and we generally don’t face as many killer attackers in BUCS (compared to the Super 8s). Because of this, I will use CUL’s blocking data to see if I can find an answer.
Blocking Stats Definitions Explained
The definitions of the blocking stats can be found below.
One thing to note is a block attempt is defined as a ball touch in an attempt to rebound an opposition attack attempt. It does not include any block jump attempts that does not include a ball touch. The stats also doesn’t include Block Touches – a block attempt that results in a ball touch and play continues on blocker’s side.
Block Efficiency Ratio is the best performance indicator I can think of with the data I collect. I do use total opposition attack attempts as a proxy number for total blocking opportunities but this only works as a team stat rather than with individual players.
Individual Player Blocking Stats
Below is the individual player blocking stats at City University London Women 1st.
The stats show there are nine outfield players who doesn’t even have a block efficiency ratio value because they haven’t recorded a block kill or block error all season. This tells me these players have zero effect on blocking. These players could have a much bigger impact if they step back and defend any tipped balls. You could argue that if that player digs one tipped ball once, that would have otherwise resulted in an opposition kill, that player already had a positive effect than blocking has had all season. The more the player digs tipped balls, the more valuable not blocking becomes.
From the stats above, there’s only three players (#10 Quaglia, #12 Zurzolo and #14 Van Den Brink) whom I would give normal blocking responsibilities since they block often enough (more than one block attempt per set) and they are efficient blockers (a block efficiency ratio of 1.00+). For players who either blocks often enough but are inefficient blockers or for players who doesn’t block enough often but are efficient blockers, then I would probably give them limited blocking responsibility based on their position, physical characteristics and their skill set.
Potential Issues with Limited Blocking
One potential issue with limited blocking is the defence set-up changes depending on who is blocking. This can create confusion amongst the players in how and where to defend. A second potential issue is if the opposite doesn’t block, it would push the setter deeper to defend the hard driven line spikes. This would increase the distance the setter has to move to set the ball in transition. This could mean the setter can’t get to every ball, resulting in a point lost or hampering the set quality. There are probably other potential issues I haven’t foreseen yet.
Conclusion
The stats really confirm what I had been thinking for a while – it is not worth blocking for everybody at City University London Women’s 1st team. If players have zero or almost zero effect on blocking, then by making them step back to defend tipped balls can only have a positive effect. It also helps we don’t face that many killer attackers, where we absolutely need to put up a block, in the BUCS league we are in. However, some deeper thought is needed in how I would implement a limited blocking system.
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