Serving Errors - Why?

[CSUNner]

Hey is it just me or does it seem like there is an avalanche of service errors?

Teams struggle and work so hard for a point, and then just give it back with a service error.

Advice - Do you think you should just keep the ball in play on a serve and run the risk of an easy pass and get it rammed back down your throat. Or do you go for a hard serve, run the risk of a service error, but try to keep them off their game?

[roy]

Depends. If the opposing team is struggling offensively, you should keep it in and hope they can't keep the ball in. Or if you are up by a signficant amount of points, you should be aggressive. It also depends on your server. A float server should be able to keep the ball in more than a jump server. And it also depends on the previous server. If the previous server made a service error, the next serving player needs to keep it in to try to earn a point for his team.

But we are still early in the season. We've only been in the season for 4 or 5 weeks. Teams will get into a rythem and start to find the court.

[CSUNner]

Thanks Roy.

Seems to me that servers are only thinking about their serve and not in context of the flow of the game.

You made some great points.

[baywatcher]

The Al Scates philosoph of hit it hard is pervasive. Rather take a chance on getting a chance to score then just taking your medicine on the return. Sort of to the contrary, with rally scoring it would seem more important to get the serve in. Two great jump serves, followed by one in the net, is only one net point for your side in rally scoring, while gets you two ahead under the old system. But UCLA keeps firing away with the hard jump serves.

[CSUNner]

BayWatcher - good points. We came on board after the switch to rally scoring but heard the stories about marathon matches.

With rally scoring I am surprised there hasn't been an adjustment made in the approach to serving.

Our son is a High School senior who is also on a club team which just qualified for JO's with an Open Bid and he is set to play next year D1. His HS coach says swing away, and his club coach says keep the ball in play.

Go figure...

I agree keeping the ball in play is strategically sound. Try to block, pass and get your own set opportunities.

[Will Rogers Beach]

If you watched the NCAA finals last year, UCLA was bombing their serves away until the score reached the 20's. They committed so many service errors. As a fan, it was very frustrating to watch. I notice that Coach Al Scates would let his players serve hard until it gets down to the last 10 points. In all 3 games in the last championship match, UCLA was down and had to catch up against Penn State. But, it worked for the Bruins. Once they started taking something off their jump serves, they were able to score.

So, it’s really a strategy set up by the coaching staff. They also look at the ace to error ratio.

In my observation, players are so used to passing a hard jump serve that sometimes a well placed floater is more effective. I’ve seen some shanked or off passes from very good floaters.

I don’t mind the service errors if it’s a hard jump serve. What really irks me more is a player who’s floating a serve while on the ground and the ball goes out or does not even clear the net. If you’re standing on the ground, you should NOT make a service error!

[swingaway]

CSUN's loss to LCU "could " be blamed on 23-13 service errors. I have no answer. Tough serve is great, error sucks the life from the momentum. Who knows??

[CSUNner]

Hey swingaway you have to agree with Will - watching someone stand flat footed, doing a float serve and not even getting it over the net makes you want to scream.

[zip15]

Another thing to consider is the level of play--In the college game, teams are going through 20+ rotations per game most of the time. That means 70% of the points are off serve recieve and 30% are off serve. If 70% of the time you lose your serve even if you put it in, it starts to make sense to rip away at a serve. However, at lower levels, serve recieve isn't nearly the benefit, it makes more sense to just get it in and play it out.

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

Are you saying the sideout rate is 65% or so? I don't know enough about the men's side to know whether that is reasonable or not. I know that on the women's side, it is more like 55%, and figuring the men's side to be tougher, it wouldn't seem crazy.

I always figure, when I read about matches, it so often comes down to "they didn't pass well." When so much of the match rides on the ability to pass, doing everything possible to make passing harder seems like something that is the right idea. It doesn't have to be banging away on the serve, but if you are always trying to serve the edges, there is going to be risk.

Shoot, I can even serve in the middle of the court. However, it doesn't get the other team out of system very effectively.

[OC4]

to win a game in men's D1 you usually have to side out at about 70%

[Lew8ftln]

I think p-dub's comment is critical to keep in mind. In the men's game, the offense is at such an advantage....the key is to limit the setter's options. I think the service errors come from a server trying to Ace a team where they should focus on just getting that team out of system. Aces are great but I make the comparison to baseball. A strike out pitcher will tend to deal w/ more problems w/ their fielders because they are part of the play so much less. So for me being a middle, I'd rather have that server get the oppenent out of system and then get a good block up and either complete a block, or have the ball dug relatively easily and then put away by our side...rather than gettin an ace.

Maybe to change the stigma about the glory of an ace we should change the scorebox to not show aces, but show the grade of serving based on their opponents' setting options. So just like an ERA. On a good night ur serving star gets a score of 1.34 or somethin (oppenent averaged 1.34 options to set when he served) and that would encourage a widened thought process on serving.

[zip15]

Intersting thought

Would be really hard to calculate, especially consistantly. I had a coach one time that used to rank passes 1-5 based (very arbitrarly) on how good the pass was. Similar thought, but very very hard to institue as an official stat.

[wholeinone04]

most teams that stat passing and serving will do serving on a 0-4 scale, and passing on a 0-3 scale.
So, the total should always equal 4. For example if a passer makes a perfect pass, that is a 3 point pass and a 1 point serve for the server.

0 point pass= when you get aced.
1 point pass= when setter has one/maybe 2 options(no middle)
2 point pass= somewhere near the target where the setter can still set a good ball, possibly set middle.
3 point pass= 'perfect' pass

[Lew8ftln]

Exactly and if they can have a stat for baseball in fielding percentage, then why not a stat for serving in volleyball....either way I think the problem is that u need to determine the most accepted way to score. Is it really thru rally? Or does that screw the game up by eliminating big comebacks(ala Oilers bills in w/e playoff game that was that they made the best comeback ever)


The best comeback I've been apart of was against IL last year where we were down 9-12 in the deciding game and came back to win like 24-22. So 3 points down was a huge comeback.... but rally scoring kills a lot of potential comebacks in vball by allowing a team to win by default (serving into the net or by the fact that a team sides out 70%).

I repopose a scoring system where u score on every play until game point? After that you have to win w/ the serve as in traditional scoring vs. rally? I don't know if this is the perfect remedy, but I think something needs to be figured out so that matches can be more time friendly w/ o letting a team win by default.