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Is Tipping in Volleyball Undervalued?
Tipping in Volleyball
When I was coaching Team USA Women at the All Nations 2019 Tournament, I asked the team to tip a lot because I could saw many of the opposition teams were defending deep. This meant there was so much space behind the block and beyond to get the kill. However, the team didn’t tip a lot but when they did tip, it either resulted in a kill or at least put the team out of system. Even the execution of the tips themselves wasn’t the best as it felt it took forever to land but it still got the job done. This got me thinking whether tipping was highly effective but underutilised in volleyball? Was tipping undervalued in volleyball? I collated some stats to try and answer this very question. If you need some information on the data collection, go to the end of the blog post.
City Univeristy London Women’s Team
So below is all the third touch attacks, i.e. after a pass/dig and set, by City University London (CUL) Women’s team in the past two seasons.
The results really surprised me because tips (23.9%) are almost twice as effective as hard driven spikes (12.6%). Even soft attacks (18.5%) are more effective than hard attacks (12.6%). You can see that the kill pct. for the tip and hard attacks remains largely the same (only a 0.6% drop) but there’s a massive drop in error pct. (11.9% drop). This accounts for the difference in the overall hitting pct. There is a similar outcome for soft attacks. Soft attacks, compared to hard attacks, only has a small drop in kill pct. (3.9% drop) but the bigger drop in error pct. (9.8%) far overcomes this. The difference accounts makes soft attacks more effective than hard attacks.
Women’s Super 8s/ League 2017-19
I combined the data for all the matches I statted for Polonia SideOut London in the top tier of women’s volleyball in England. This will give a better overview of league level rather than individual team level.
Despite an increase in skill level, tipping the ball (22.7%) is still more effective than hard driven attacks (18.8%) but the difference is smaller compared to what was found at CUL. The reason behind the smaller difference is the kill pct. for the hard attacks at this level is 6% higher compared to CUL. The difference for the kill pct. is only 1.3% different while the error pct. for the hard tip attacks is only 0.2% different. That is, they remain remarkly similar. Soft attacks seems to be not that effective at this level.
Men’s Super League 2018-19
Below is the third touch attacks for all the matches I statted in the Men’s Super League 2018-19 season.
Whatever we saw in CUL and the Women’s Super League is almost the reverse to what we see here. Tips (10.5%) and soft attacks (11.8%) are only about half as effective as hard driven spikes (21.8%). The kill pct. for hard attacks is really high at 44.9%, which will drive up any hitting pct.
Discussion
It looks like tipping is undervalued in the women’s game and tipping is more effective in the lower level. It looks like this is not the case in the men’s elite level where power is more effective. It’s not known whether it would be effective in the men’s game but at the lower level.
Tipping may be even more effective if we consider these factors. The stats doesn’t differentiate whether the tip attack happened after a good or bad set. I imagine most tip attacks happen in bad situations when the set is tight on the net. Would tipping to be more effective after a good set, when teams are probably not expecting it? The second thing is we don’t really practice tipping in training (from my experience anyway). Would happens if players actually practice tipping in drills to the point where they can dink the ball just over the block, tip the ball line or cross and disguise the tip by still using hard spike approach but straighten the arm at the last possible moment? Surely the effectiveness of tipping will increase.
Future
I have already reflected that I intend to practice tipping when I’m back coaching at CUL next season. The numbers tell me that it could be a secret weapon that could win me more matches. For Polonia women, I will probably add some analysis in the match and team reports to show players and coach that tipping is under rated and should probably be utilised more.
***Data Collection*** All stats shown include third touch attack attempts. Attack attempts is essentially defined as any jump and spike action. Downballs, digs and volleys does not count, even if it results in a kill (I would code this as a freeball kill). Third touch is any attack attempt as a third touch, i.e. after a pass/ dig and a set. Any second touch attacks (usually by the setter) and first touch attacks (i.e. attack from an overpass) are not included in the tables.
For the Men’s and Women’s Super League, I’ve included all match data I’ve statted in that league as show the level of the league rather than an individual team level. It won’t be totally representative of the league level because I would have statted more Polonia matches, since I am their performance analyst, and more matches they have played against. For BUCS South Eastern Division 1A Women, I only included City University London’s data. This is because I use a defensive system where player at 1 defends tips only rather defending the whole line like most teams use. This means we defend tipped balls well and it would change the league average.
I didn’t use data beyond two seasons because I didn’t have specifically code overpass attacks so I couldn’t take away overpass attacks with all attacks.
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