National Preview – Statistics Loss (or Yikes!)

The calendar has turned to July and that’s when things start to ramp up in the 10-story office complex that houses the D3VbWest staff of writers, editors and groupies. By this time, I’ve usually finished my look at statistics loss but I still have, yet, to put out the national article. While doing that research I found a surprising number of teams that had large points loss going into this 2022 season. As a reminder, statistics loss is typically due to graduation loss (seniors graduating) and that’s what we focus on here. With the COVID year, the Super Senior has been inserted into the process and sort of messes up our nice neat 4-year athletic run for these athletes. Still, since I don’t have insight into every team’s roster, we are simply going to look at who is supposed to graduate and the statistics that must be made up by others with their loss.

Back to my research and I have a list of teams that have been in the Top 25 for the past few years and then each year I add programs as they appear in the final rankings. This year, for instance, we say hello to Wartburg, Otterbein and Bethel. I have now gone through each of these teams and I have 42 programs that made the cut, and remember that each of these teams are outside of the West Region (they were handled in conference articles written previously). When you factor in the West Region teams (including UC Santa Cruz), I will have covered 81 schools in total.

Back to the point of this article. As I was doing my research, I found five teams with losses right at or above 70% points loss, which is a giant number to replace in just one season. To put this simply, if a team scored (earned) 2000 points in 2021 and lost 70% to graduation then they would have to replace 1400 points! When really good to great players earn 300 to 400 points a season, you can quickly see how much of the roster has to be replaced. And these are the hitters, folks. I’ve mentioned in the past that it’s far easier to replace setters and liberos than it is hitters. (Coaches may disagree with this stance but from a statistical point-of-view, it’s correct.) I thought it would be interesting to briefly highlight these 5 top programs and so I reached out to their coaches to see what their thoughts were on the upcoming squad. Being the middle of summer, right before a holiday weekend and getting an email (if they read it) that basically says, “What are you going to do as you have no team left?”, means I’ve received two responses out of the five.

You might be asking why 70% is so special and it’s really not. It’s just a lot. If you’ve read my statistics loss articles in the past, then you know that 45% is the point where I get worried that a team can replicate their previous season. For the bigger programs, they can afford to lose more because they are usually deeper with larger rosters, but 70% seems daunting for any program. If you remember from my Trinity article, they are “supposed” to lose 83% of their points but they have a number of Super Seniors coming back that reduced that to 50%. The first number, even for Trinity, would set them back to a point that they probably don’t make the NCAA Tournament. The second number, for them, is more manageable. This was one of the reasons I reached out to the coaches, to see if they were retaining any Super Seniors.

To be clear, a team losing 70% of their points is going to take a step back unless something special happens (like with Trinity). In that Trinity article I mentioned that the only time Trinity has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2012 is when they had points loss of 61.7% in 2014. Another team that jumps out at me was Illinois Wesleyan from 2018. They were 27-6 but lost 71.4% of their points to graduation. The following year they went 9-20. I couldn’t remember how many teams have hit that 70% mark but it wouldn’t surprise me if IWU was the only one since I’ve been doing this for the top teams nationally. This year we have 5. (Well, almost 5.)

That’s a lot of words before we see the 5 programs, so here are the schools with their points loss from 2021:

• UW-Eau Claire at 68.8%

• Johns Hopkins at 70.9%

• Augsburg at 74.3%

• Hope at 78.5%

• Wartburg at 78.9%

Our last two national champions are on that list! Hope is on that list (Calvin fans rejoice)! Wartburg was the surprise of 2021 and played one of the most intense fun amazing matches all year when they lost in 5-sets to CMS in their Regional Final are on that list! I got nothing witty for Augsburg. They are just always really good and they are on the list! If you knew nothing about statistics loss and I said these are your top 5 teams at the end of this upcoming season, you’d be like “way to go out on a limb”.

Let’s take a closer look at the losses for each team and I’ll interject some coach speak where they provided it.

UW – Eau Claire

• Kills 69.5%

• Attempts 68.4%

• Assists 7%

• Aces 44.2%

• Digs 62.5%

• Blocks (solo) 85.1%

• Blocks (assists) 77.5%

• Points 68.8%

Well, the Blugolds get to keep their setter at least! The main hitter coming back is rising senior Jordan Witzel who finished with 429 points. Sure, they won the national championship but this is 2022. We can’t live in past glory! What are we going to do here?!?!

Thankfully, defending national champion Head Coach Kim Wudi was nice enough to reply to my pleas of panic. She states that she will have a  Super Senior in Arianna Barrett returning. Barrett was the Blugold’s top hitter finishing with 465.5 points so the outside punch remains intact with Barrett and Witzel. That means you can lop off 20% from that points loss, which takes them to just under 50%. At this point, I feel, Coach Wudi started bragging a bit. She casually mentions that she has two transfers coming in and her recruiting class. Don’t think that was a brag? How about this, “We have a saying in our program that “the toughest opponent we play should be in our own gym.” Every coach wants to have depth, but we’re the only team that can honestly say that over half our team competed against the national champions EVERY DAY in 2021!” (Is it bragging when it’s true?)

So, maybe we don’t need to worry too much about the Blugold. They definitely have a good group coming in and maybe the most battle tested bench players in the nation ready to step up.

Johns Hopkins

• Kills 72.4%

• Attempts 69%

• Assists 85.6%

• Aces 53.7%

• Digs 53.8%

• Blocks (solo) 86.2%

• Blocks (assists) 80.3%

• Points 70.9%

Yikes. The Blue Jays DON’T get to keep their setter! The 2019 national champions were helped in 2021 by a couple of Super Seniors in Portale and Bliss but they won’t be around for a 6^th season. (Maybe if they played for Trinity that could happen.) The top hitter returning is Danielle Norman who is a rising junior that finished with 246 points last season. Coach Matt Troy has taken steps to increase his roster over the last few years so the depth is there. It wasn’t too long ago where JHU was having to reschedule matches due to their small roster size and injuries.

Unfortunately, Coach Troy didn’t respond to my email but I know him pretty well so I can imagine our back and forth to go something like:

Awesome Rob, “Things look tough, Matt. What are you going to do?”

Coach Troy, “I have no idea. I am at a loss. Maybe we should forfeit the season?”

Incredible Rob, “That seems a little dramatic. I mean, I’ve seen your schedule and you’ve scheduled some tough competition so you must think your squad will be good again?”

Coach Troy, “I don’t know what I was thinking. I was having trouble sleeping and just randomly accepted some tournament invites one night. I didn’t join that East/West Challenge, did I?”

Handsome Rob, “I’m afraid you did, Matt. Still, it’s a challenge, right? You and the team will come out just fine, right?”

Coach Troy, “Kind of you to say but no. This will be a total disaster. We have no hope. Is Mills College looking for a new coach?”

Brilliant Rob, “Um. Mills College dropped athletics, but I think you’ll do just fine. Remember, just like in 2019, if you need some advice, just call on me and I’ll help you out. You got this coach!”

This is why coaches should respond to my emails! All joking aside with fictional Coach Troy, I’m sure JHU will be fine but it will be interesting to follow them to see how they do out of the gate.

Augsburg

• Kills 74.9%

• Attempts 74.7%

• Assists 91.6%

• Aces 61.4%

• Digs 63.5%

• Blocks (solo) 83.1%

• Blocks (assists) 77.7%

• Points 74.3%

No more fake coach interviews, I promise. Looking at those losses for the Eagles and it’s just across the board, isn’t it? The top hitter returning is Mikayla Coops who had 165.5 points last season. Another problem facing the Eagles is that they were only 15-13 last season. They did hold their own against good teams and were regionally ranked most of the time but this is a bit scary.

Hope

• Kills 80%

• Attempts 81.3%

• Assists 92.9%

• Aces 75.4%

• Digs 66.9%

• Blocks (solo) 58.3%

• Blocks (assists) 73%

• Points 78.5%

Wow! I’m afraid to even list Wartburg at this point. The top returning hitter is Charlotte Brecht who finished with 270.5 points last season. She’s a middle and is the reason why the Solo Blocks number doesn’t look as bad as the other numbers. Coach Becky Schmidt did return my email and mentioned that they did have a Super Senior coming back but she suffered an injury so she goes back to the “lost to graduation” list. The Dutch will bring in a DI transfer so that will help greatly but it could be a slower than usual start for the team. Coach Schmidt did say, “Yeah… I didn’t do the calculation on the % of points lost, but that sounds about right. I am excited about our group, though – it might be a bit of a journey but they have a high ceiling.” She went on to say that some of the players moving into a starting role could outperform last year’s squad in areas. The MIAA is always highlighted by Calvin and Hope and it will be interesting to see if Hope can continue that run this year.

Wartburg

• Kills 82.2%

• Attempts 83.7%

• Assists 97%

• Aces 53.4%

• Digs 71.8%

• Blocks (solo) 79.9%

• Blocks (assists) 75.1%

• Points 78.9%

The Knights are always good but they were crazy good last season. Just a fun defensive team to watch that could also terminate better than you thought going into the match. Sad to see those dig numbers going away, but I always focus on the points and that’s just scary high. Middle Allison Feigenbaum is their top returning hitter with 186.5 points last season so someone they can build around as she was only a freshman in 2021. I can’t imagine Wartburg being able to avoid a drop this year and that’s even if they have a Super Senior or two in their back pocket.

Well, those are the five teams nationally that I analyzed that will have the toughest challenge ahead of them. You can add Trinity to that mix, too, but like Eau Claire, they are getting some help in their fight. It will be very interesting to see how these teams do during the season but I will say that getting these teams early is probably a lot better than playing them late in the year. They are all proven winners but these statistics may mean that they won’t get there until they get through some early struggles.

Next up is the national statistics loss article, which will help me with my preseason Top 25 that is also due out this month.