The Process of Drawing Up the SP8S All Star Team

WHY DID I DO IT?It was a meaningful way to show who the best players in the league was.

HOW DID I DO IT? As the SP8S’s  is statistics, the team had to be based on statistics.  The statistics that I chosen was based on my literature review on valid volleyball performance indicators (blog version here).  Every single one had attack as critical to a successful outcome with the other technical skills having some or no support.  My initial studies into valid performance indicators in volleyball using Olympic Games data and the data I gathered in the Super 8s itself also showed attack, in addition to point scoring, as critical.  The Points Efficiency Ratio seem to correlate perfectly with league position but it was not used as it is not used in the SP8S.  Thus, positions of outside, opposite and middle were based on Hitting %. My initial studies also showed that Assist % correlates with success so the position of setter is based on Assist %.  Reception has better support than defence as a valid performance indicator but the position of libero was based on Digs per Set because a reception performance indicator is not used in the SP8S.

So knowing what statistics was critical to success, I simply looked down End of Regular Season Top 10 List to find the players I wanted in their position.  Since the Top 10 Hitting % List is dominated by middle players, I had to look further down the list using the spreadsheet I used to compile the statistics.

Once I had the SP8S All Star Selection, I had to present it in a professional way.  It went through a few drafts but below is what I ended up with.  The only thing I would have liked to have was a volleyball court showing their actual starting rotation, but I simply didn’t have enough space for it.  

SO WHAT DID I LEARN FROM IT?

People are interested in knowing this.  To date, there have been 300 pageviews on the Official SP8S All-Star Team, the most pageviews of any post we have.