Game Five Strategies?

[Wolfgang]

Ahh...who can forget Fischer-Spassky world championship in 1972. Fischer lost the first two games and was sweating into a bucket. He eventually won the match 12.5-8.5.

[Deleted]

Fischer never sweat. He had his sweat glands removed at the age of 12.

[shag]

Ahhh...yes! Talk about grudge-matches...the Boris-Bobby chess match-up, the Miracle on Ice, the Russky Commies stealing our basketball gold medal with a do-over, steroid-pumped women gymnasts/swimmers/shot-putters ("Shvimwear!"), ICBMs, Fidel and Nikita.....The Cold War...now THAT was a rivalry!

[Deleted]

The USSR was always over-rated. All flash and no splash. Nikita said he'd bury us. Well, who's buried now, Nikkie?

Now, a real grudge match was the whole Tolstoy-Agatha Christie feud.

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

collegecoach8502 said:

I4.) Break the game down to measurable levels for the team to fight for:
a.) First team to 5
b.) First team to 8 (lead at the changeover)
c.) First to 11
d.) and of course first to 15.

You know, I hate you. Because you post this, I had to waste an hour looking up pbp data for game 5s. It's easiest when you can just go to a school's website and they have pbp data with the box scores. Cheers to those that have this info.

I was able to find pbp data for 48 game 5s (there are more if you dig through gametracker, but that blows). I looked at how often the team won when they were the first to reach X points

X: Pct
5: 68%
8: 67%
10: 79%
12: 83%

I was in fact pretty surprised that the % wasn't higher at 10. You'd think that the first team to hit 10 would win more than 3/4 of the time. Not by much, they don't.

If you can hold a two point lead at any of these points, it helps. If your lead is 2 at 5-3, the pct of wins goes up to 71%, and at 12 - 10, it is 91%.

Here is a breakdown of winning pct vs lead at a given point

First to	5	8	10	12
Lead by 1 or more	68%	67%	79%	83%
Lead by 2 or more	68%	73%	83%	86%
Lead by 3 or more	67%	85%	90%	93%
Lead by 4 or more	58%	80%	89%	93%

There are some sampling issues toward the bottom, so it is easier to just break it down:

All 7 teams that started 8 - 5 won, but only 7/9 who started out 8-4 or better won.

No team that hit 12 points ahead by 3 lost.

The best game I found was South Carolina/Maryland. Soutch Carolina jumped out 5-2, and pulled away to 8-2. Then Maryland came back, cutting the score to 10 - 8, before taking the lead at 10 -12, winning 11 - 15.

St Peters was the only team to lose after jumping out to a 5-1 lead, losing to Iona 13 - 15.

[leadbrain]

pablo said:

collegecoach8502 said:

I4.) Break the game down to measurable levels for the team to fight for:
a.) First team to 5
b.) First team to 8 (lead at the changeover)
c.) First to 11
d.) and of course first to 15.

that's way too much math. not sure what all those numbers mean.

You know, I hate you. Because you post this, I had to waste an hour looking up pbp data for game 5s. It's easiest when you can just go to a school's website and they have pbp data with the box scores. Cheers to those that have this info.

I was able to find pbp data for 39 game 5s (there are more if you dig through gametracker, but that blows). I looked at how often the team won when they were the first to reach X points

X: Pct
5: 67%
8: 72%
10: 77%
12: 87%

I was in fact pretty surprised that the % wasn't higher at 10. You'd think that the first team to hit 10 would win more than 3/4 of the time. Not by much, they don't.

If you can hold a two point lead at any of these points, it helps. If your lead is 2 at 5-3, the pct of wins goes up to 71%, and at 12 - 10, it is 91%.

Here is a breakdown of winning pct vs lead at a given point

First to	5	8	10	12
Lead by 1 or more	67%	72%	77%	87%
Lead by 2 or more	71%	73%	82%	91%
Lead by 3 or more	83%	88%	90%	100%
Lead by 4 or more	75%	78%	92%	100%

There are some sampling issues toward the bottom, so it is easier to just break it down:

All 7 teams that started 8 - 5 won, but only 7/9 who started out 8-4 or better won.

No team that hit 12 points ahead by 3 lost.

The best game I found was South Carolina/Maryland. Soutch Carolina jumped out 5-2, and pulled away to 8-2. Then Maryland came back, cutting the score to 10 - 8, before taking the lead at 10 -12, winning 11 - 15.

St Peters was the only team to lose after jumping out to a 5-1 lead, losing to Iona 13 - 15.

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

It's not that complicated. Go back to this part

I looked at how often the team won when they were the first to reach X points

X: Pct
5: 67%
8: 72%
10: 77%
12: 87%


Thus, the first team to reach 5 points wins 2/3 of the time. The first team to 8 points wins 72% of the time. Etc.

The table shows how big of lead each team has when they hit that point. Teams that have at least a two point lead when they get to 8 win 73% of the time. Teams that have a three point lead when they hit 12 win all the matches I looked at.

[Deleted]

Someone should figure out how many 15-point games are won by one service point. It's bad enough when it happens in a 30-point game, but in the 5th game it just seems like a coin flip.

[lonewolf]

Play changes more in FIVB rule matches in the area of subbing in "specialists" more

[OverAndUnder]

Yes, thanks for the reminder (R)uffda! I forgot to add to my list:

4) ALWAYS pick to receive.

[Gorf]

overandunder said:

Which is more than Major League Volleyball did, and look where it got them!

They didn't have the funding available to keep the league going.

The only teams that seemed to draw a consistently decent crowd were the Portland and Minnesota.

Minnesota continued playing after all of the teams that Batanovich (sp?) owned all stopped playing when he pulled the plug.

Minnesota carried on for an extra 2-3 years playing against international / club teams trying to get their attendance level increased from it's normal season averages.

I still have a tape somewhere of the championship match for the year league went under. Minnesota was 12-0 (or close to that) so with the league folding before the rest of season the league was convinced to have a championship match which turned out being All-Stars from the entire league against the Monarchs. The Monarchs won the championship match in the 5th game, however, it was a bittersweet ending since the league would no longer exist after that match.


The more recent USPV league folded more because of the stock market collapse and the company / people that original invested $2M in funding for the league had to back out of that funding because poor (for lack of a better term) investments.

It may well have been the company started have financial problems on their own needed that money for their own problem.

Regardless of how / why it happened the USPV fold for the most part because promised funds were withdrawn from the league.

Perhaps Minnesota is a jinx. Every time they've been in a profession league and they've won a championship the leagues have folded.


Someone needs to convince Bill Gates to fund a women's profesional volleyball league.


Sorry about going off topic but O&U brought up the MLV.

[standingroomonly1]

RE--Starting your best hitter (at least in that match) in the front row for the fifth game, makes me recall, for example, the 2004 Regional Final when Stacey Gordon ended up with 44 kills. She started the fifth game in the back row. After OSU scoring a couple of points she rotated to the back row. The team gave up too many points when she rotated to the back and they never did recover to get her back to the front soon enough. What was Stone thinking? Even the TV commentators went on and and on about "here's his chance to get her in the front for the short game and she's stating at the back?" Similarly, earlier that same year in PSU, Gordon started game1 at the front--they won handily. Game 2 she started at the back-they lost badly: Game 3--she started at the front-they won handily. Game 4 she started at the back-they lost badly. Game 5 she started at the front and they won--beating PSU in their own building--a feat not often accomplished.

[JustInCase]

So p-dub...I am assuming you agree with my statements? I appreciate the analysis. I think it says a lot. You are a better man than I...wouldn't have taken the time to do the research!

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

collegecoach8502 said:

So p-dub...I am assuming you agree with my statements? I appreciate the analysis. I think it says a lot. You are a better man than I...wouldn't have taken the time to do the research!

Unfortunately, it is a weakness, not a strength that I do these things.

On the whole, it supports what you said, but only in the obvious sense. Getting to 5 first is a good thing. Getting to 8 first is better. Getting to 10 and then 12 even better. Getting to 15 among the best (but still not perfect

Of course, I think you can say the same thing for any game. It's just that the impact is magnified in the short game 5. The reason getting to 5 first is useful is because it means that you have less to go to get to 15. If you are ahead 5-4, that means that the opponent needs to outscore you by 3 points to win the match, whereas you only need to play even.

OTOH, I don't see this as profound. The way to win game 5 is to score points, and prevent the other team from doing the same. If you are doing that, then you will reach 5,8,10,12,15 before your opponent does. Thus, I see "reaching landmark X first" as a consequence of the strategy, no the strategy in itself.

[cruncher]

You are a better man than I.

Don't you mean woman? Ms. p-dub is probably offended by that reference to her manhood.