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The Most Important Skill in Super 8s Men’s Volleyball Reviewed
INTRODUCTION
I have written several blog posts into the most important skills in volleyball critical to success. I have reviewed the academic literature. I’ve also done pre-dissertation study using official data from the Olympic Games. All have shown that attack is the most important skill in volleyball. There is less agreement on all of the other technical skills as critical to success.
A limitation in those studies is they are based on elite volleyball, e.g. Olympic Games, World League, Greek A1 League etc, and it may not necessarily translate to non-elite volleyball. That is, the skills critical to success at elite level may not be the same at non-elite level. With my work with the Super 8s Statistics and the data I have collected, I have the unique opportunity to initially answer the question of what is the most important skill in non-elite volleyball using data from the NVL Super 8s Men’s league.
RESULTS
I have compared a team’s league position with their performance indicator rank. There are one to two performance indicators for each 6 technical skill plus point-scoring. The performance indicators are calculated as follows:
Pts/Set = (Kills + Blocks + Aces)/ Sets Played Points Efficiency Ratio = (Kills + Block Kills + Aces)/(Attack Errors + Block Errors + Service Errors + Assist Errors + Reception Errors) H% [Hitting %] = (Kills – Attack Errors)/Total Attack Attempts A% [Assist %] = (Assists – Assist Errors)/Total Assist Attempts Block Points/Set = Block Kills/ Sets Played Block Efficiency Ratio = Block Kills/ Block Errors Aces/Set = Aces/ Sets Played Serve Efficiency Ratio = Aces/ Service Errors Digs/Set = Digs/ Sets Played Reception % = 1-(Reception Error/Total Reception Attempts)
If their league position matches their performance indicator rank then I have highlighted it green. If it is one rank away then I have highlighted it orange. If it two or more ranks away then I have highlighted it red. No statistical testing have been performed so no significant results are known.
DISCUSSION
It can be seen that the Points Efficiency Ratio is the best indicator of performance. It is the only performance indicator that perfectly matches the league position across the board. Points per Set is also a great performance indicator as it within one of their league position.
Hitting % is also a strong indicator of performance as their rank is within 1 of their league position. Assist % is also another strong indicator of performance as perfectly matches four of the teams’ league position although it has two that do not match.
Blocks is a decent indicator of performance in both block points per set and block efficiency ratio. There are only a few perfect matches but a lot closely matched ranks.
Serve is the poorest indicator of performance. Seven of the eight performance indicator does not match their league rank. For example, London Polonia and London Lynx are 3rd and 4th in the league but are the 7th and 8th worst serving team in the league. Sheffield, who are 6th in the league are one of the best serving teams (1st in aces per set and 2nd in serve efficiency ratio).
Digs (or defence) is also another poor indicator of performance, although it did perfectly predict the bottom two teams. A better performance may be a Dig %, the percentage of digs that is kept in play. However, data of Missed Digs and Block Outs are needed to calculate a Dig %, which was not done.
Reception is a somewhat good indicator of performance. Reception % is the percentage of reception attempts that is kept in play. It is the inverse of a reception error %. A better performance indicator may be the quality of reception. However, the data needed for this type of calculation was not collected.
DISCUSSION
It looks like points scoring is the best indicator of performance, specifically the Points Efficiency Ratio (PER) which perfectly matches the team’s rank with their league position. This would make sense because to win matches, you need to score points while additionally not lose points in errors, i.e. give points to your opponents. It can be seen that Newcastle Staffs has a PER of 0.93 which means they actually lost more points in errors than scored points on average for the whole season. It is no surprise that they lost all of their matches this season.
Hitting % and Assist % are the next best performance indicators. This would make sense because you score the most points (and lose in errors) via the attack and assist % is just a function of running an attack.
Block is a decent performance indicator. This also makes sense because while it is a point scoring point, the actual number of points scored or lost in errors is very low per set. For example, the top ranked Block Points/Set is Malory Eagles with 2.02. That is, a team will only score 2.02 points per set via the block which falls short of the 25 points needed to win a set. It is a surprise that both serve performance indicators are extremely poor since it is a point scoring skill.
Digs per set and reception % are not good performance indicators but it may be if another performance indicator are used.
CONCLUSION
Point scoring followed by attack and assists are the most important skills in volleyball in relation to final league position in the Super 8s. Blocking has some importance. However, serve, dig and reception are not critical to final league position.
LIMITATION
No statistical testing to find significant results (that is, p>0.05) have been done so it is not known whether the rankings have come about by chance.
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