Pass Quality and Hitting Efficiency

Mainly because few coaches are willing to provide detailed numbers for other coaches to look at, I figured, “Why not do a blog showing the breakdown of the relationship between pass quality and hitting efficiency?”  Besides, it’s better than doing other paperwork and adult crap.

Now–it’s important to realize that when you break VB passing down, using the scale of 3-2-1-0 does NOT provide an accurate assessment of the passes’ values.  3-2-1-0 suggests a 3 is 300% more valuable than a 1, 50% more valuable than a 2.  The reality is that a 3 is about 500% more valuable than a 1 and 25% more valuable than a 2.  Please keep this in mind!!  I say that because even though using a 5-4-1-0 system is a better use of passing stats as an evaluation tool, I’ve presented everything below in terms of 3-2-1-0 since that is what a majority of coaches continue to use.

The breakdown below goes:3+2% / 1% / ZERO% / S-R Rating / Hit Eff % / Record

2018:  72.3% / 21.1%  / 7.6% / 2.06 / .263  Current Record: 27-112017:  76.0% / 19.1% / 4.9% / 2.12 / .237  Final Record: 37-72016:  73.6% / 20.2% / 6.2% / 2.11 / .232 Final Record: 40-92015:  70.7% / 24.2% / 5.1% / 2.20 / .270 Final Record: 40-62014:  77.4% / 15.6% / 7.1% / 2.09 / .243 Final Record: 25-18

Hmmm…so our season where we have the highest percentage of good/perfect passes has the worst W/L record.  It also has our second highest percentage of getting aced/overpassing the ball.  Coincidentally, our current season has the highest rate of 0-passes and a very similar record to 2014.

So really–even though I’d concluded that the important thing is to convert 1s to 2s, more than converting anything to a perfect pass–the reality is that it seems to be most important to eliminate the aces/overpasses from the equation, that the priority on serve-receive simply has to be “get the ball up somewhere/anywhere” for a reasonably controlled second contact.

The alternative is that there is a ‘magic’ breakpoint somewhere between 6.2% and 7.1% of serve-receive passes that are ‘zeroes’ that significantly tilts the final record (presuming similar quality of competition).

Thoughts?

In any event, while you’re here…have you considered hitting the “FOLLOW” button?  And just as important, why not go buy a copy ofLike Heck She Isn’t a Volleyball Player?  It’s under five dollars and it’ll make you think about volleyball (hopefully) in different ways.

(Or if you feel like a good war story, try:The Five Days of Osan.)

Every day–find a way to enjoy yourself and learn!!!