Pass Quality and Hitting Efficiency (updated thru 2021)

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.  The first version of this is here.

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 (stop…just stop, please!).

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

Fa21:   71.2% / 19.3% / 9.5% / 2.07 / .180 Final Record: 25-18*Co21:  65.6% / 24.6% / 9.8% / 1.94 / .204 Final Record: 17-52019:  67.1% / 23.4% / 9.5% / 2.01 / .181 Final Record: 32-182018:  71.4% / 20.8% / 7.8% / 2.05 / .256 Final Record: 29-142017:  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. Oddly, the 2014/2018 numbers look alike.  I’m curious what caused the drop in our passing efficiency 2019-Co21–it could be how they are evaluated…but the aced-rate–that’s not judgement.  On a 0-3 scale, it’s impossible to get it right, but it look like the ‘2’ quality passes have disappeared from our serve-receive. 

What sticks out now [editing in the Fall, 2021 stats] is the increased rate of being aced.  It’s likely not a coincidence with failing to make it past the regional championship.  I also checked to see if the ace rate fluctuated based on opponent quality.  It did not.  We were aced at a pretty consistent rate regardless of opponent.

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–perhaps it is more 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?  Kevin Hambly made an observation while he was at Illinois that the team that gets the most swings usually gets the most kills–and who gets the most kills determines the winner.

The alternative is that there is a ‘magic’ breakpoint somewhere that is going to be a key marker for success.  It looks like that’s somewhere in the 7.5-8.0% range.

Thoughts?

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