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What is the Most Effective Technique To Use in Free Balls?
Introduction
I found that the point scoring effectiveness of the free ball is negative, which means more errors are committed than points are won and that is hurting the team (see link). It would make sense that we should try and work on the effectiveness of every point scoring technical skill and that includes free balls (in addition to attack, serve and block of course). The lower the level of volleyball, the more important free balls become and the more it should be practiced.
I can think of two potential ways to improve the point scoring effectiveness of the free ball. The first is the zone you place the free ball, which I have already written about in a previous blog post (see link). The second is through the technique used. I always felt that if we had to give up a free ball then we should volley it over instead of a down ball or a dig. It is because you have much more control and accuracy to put the free ball to any part of the opposition court. You can put more power in the down balls but you won’t have the accurracy to put the ball where you want to and it takes a lot of skill to put a down ball short, e.g. to zone 2. Digs might be a safter option but the lower contact point means it’s harder to be aggressive on it. Despite the theory, is volleying a free ball over actually the best technique to use? I delved into the stats to find out.
What’s the Most Effective Technique to Use in Free Balls To Score Points?
I went back and restatted every free ball attempt according to technique – down balls, volleys or digs (it took a while). Below is a chart showing the free ball efficiency pct. and separated by competition. Free ball efficiency pct. measures the percentage of free ball attempts that results in a point won (free ball kill) whilst taking into account points lost (free ball error). It is the same calculation as a hitting percentage, as follows: FE% = (Free Ball Kills – Free Ball Errors)/ Total Free Ball Attempts. I excluded any free balls when the player is at full stretch or simply reacting just to keep the ball in play.
It looks like volley is the best technique to use in the Super League level for both men (-2.3%) and women (-1.5%). It is also the best technique to use at BUCS Tier 1 level, where it is the only situation that actually had a positive effect at +2.8% free ball efficiency. This supports my theory that volleys are the best technique to use in free balls. Down balls are the next best technique to use at Super League level for both men (-2.6%) and women (-2.7%) with digs the least effective at that level from both men (-6.7%) and women (-4.0%). However, at BUCS Tier 1 level, the dig is the second best option (-3.2%) while down balls is the worst (-.6.1%). This could be probably because Super League players are more technically able to perform down balls compared to BUCS Tier 1 players.
Limitations
Although I viewed free balls as the point scoring skill, as with my previous post of where is the most effective zone to place free balls, I fully acknowledge it is probably not the best performance indicator to measure its effectiveness. It is because so few points are won and lost via the free ball. If every Women’s Super League player volleyed the ball instead of down balling it then it would result in about 3 less free ball errors for the whole season (assuming my calculation is correct). That’s for the league itself and not for any individual team. It also ignores the outcome of the other 90% or so free ball attempts.
If I was going to study this subject again (it may be a future blog post), I would measure the free ball effectiveness by its outcome and have a Free Ball Rating/ Weighted Average, like we do with the serve or pass. I already stat several outcomes – free ball kill, free ball zero, free ball rebounded, free ball block killed and free ball error. However, the important one is to stat whether the free ball zero (where play continues on opponent’s side) resulted in a negative opposition dig (out-of-system play etc) or positive opposition play (in-system play etc). This is where volleys can be viewed as more effective in disrupting the opposition defence rather than how effective it is at scoring points.
Conclusion
I always believe that volleys was the most effective technique to use and the stats backs this up. At BUCS Tier 1 level, you can actually score more ponts for a positive FE% (+2.8%), so you are adding to the team in relation to point scoring. The difference betwen a down ball and volley is 8.9%, which is quite a gap. It liken to the difference bewteen two players with a hitting pct. of 30% and 21%. Both are good but you would start the player with 30% hitting.
However, a Free Ball Rating/ Weighted Average, where you can take into account whether the free ball put the team in or out of system, would be a better performance indicator to measure a free ball attempt’s effectiveness. Even with this measurement, I still believe volleying the free ball over is much better than down balls and digs.
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