bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Jan 25, 2019 15:55:23 GMT -5
Still not. Why would you focus on those three points and not three others? Point remains: Aces and service errors is an unreliable indicator of how well the service game is working. It CAN be and I said as much. I even admitted it could be the difference in this particular match. But it does not automatically follow. If you want to reframe my comments to score some sort of cheap point (rotation error level), feel free. I know what I said even if you don't.I can agree with this.
I think having the rally and non-rally points is interesting, but it is far from telling the story and this analysis went much deeper. What is fascinating about the stats is that Stanford had more aces - yet Nebraska was in system more often (I think it said that) and Nebraska was more effective while in system and Stanford was better OOS than Nebraska. Nebraska's backcourt defense was better, while the blocking for Stanford was better. This kind of detail I found interesting.
But you your point - I agree that # of aces doesn't necessarily tell us who is serving better. All it told us is how Stanford was able to outscore Nebraska while hitting at a lower %. Same with blocks - blocking is way more than just number of blocks.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 25, 2019 16:27:41 GMT -5
Still not. Why would you focus on those three points and not three others? Point remains: Aces and service errors is an unreliable indicator of how well the service game is working. It CAN be and I said as much. I even admitted it could be the difference in this particular match. But it does not automatically follow. If you want to reframe my comments to score some sort of cheap point (rotation error level), feel free. I know what I said even if you don't.I can agree with this.
I think having the rally and non-rally points is interesting, but it is far from telling the story and this analysis went much deeper. What is fascinating about the stats is that Stanford had more aces - yet Nebraska was in system more often (I think it said that) and Nebraska was more effective while in system and Stanford was better OOS than Nebraska. Nebraska's backcourt defense was better, while the blocking for Stanford was better. This kind of detail I found interesting.
But you your point - I agree that # of aces doesn't necessarily tell us who is serving better. All it told us is how Stanford was able to outscore Nebraska while hitting at a lower %. Same with blocks - blocking is way more than just number of blocks.
I never said it told us who was "serving better". In fact, I pointed out that Nebraska hit better than their season average, so it's really questionable that Stanford was doing some outstanding serving overall. What I said then and now (and what Joe's analysis also said) is that IN THIS MATCH the deciding factor that won the match for Stanford was points directly from the service line (what he called "non-rally points"). Did I say aces always indicate the level of serving quality? No. But that wasn't really the question here. The question was, how did Stanford win this match even while being outhit? And the answer, FOR THIS MATCH, was the aces. This was pretty obvious as soon as the box score was released, but it's nice to see that the obvious answer also held up under deeper analysis. That doesn't always happen.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2019 16:30:01 GMT -5
I can agree with this.
I think having the rally and non-rally points is interesting, but it is far from telling the story and this analysis went much deeper. What is fascinating about the stats is that Stanford had more aces - yet Nebraska was in system more often (I think it said that) and Nebraska was more effective while in system and Stanford was better OOS than Nebraska. Nebraska's backcourt defense was better, while the blocking for Stanford was better. This kind of detail I found interesting.
But you your point - I agree that # of aces doesn't necessarily tell us who is serving better. All it told us is how Stanford was able to outscore Nebraska while hitting at a lower %. Same with blocks - blocking is way more than just number of blocks.
I never said it told us who was "serving better". In fact, I pointed out that Nebraska hit better than their season average, so it's really questionable that Stanford was doing some outstanding serving overall. What I said then and now (and what Joe's analysis also said) is that IN THIS MATCH the deciding factor that won the match for Stanford was points directly from the service line (what he called "non-rally points"). Did I say aces always indicate the level of serving quality? No. But that wasn't really the question here. The question was, how did Stanford win this match even while being outhit? And the answer, FOR THIS MATCH, was the aces. This was pretty obvious as soon as the box score was released, but it's nice to see that the obvious answer also held up under deeper analysis. That doesn't always happen. Thanks for sharing
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bluepenquin
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4-Time VolleyTalk Poster of the Year (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016), All-VolleyTalk 1st Team (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016)
Posts: 12,385
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Post by bluepenquin on Jan 25, 2019 16:47:39 GMT -5
I can agree with this.
I think having the rally and non-rally points is interesting, but it is far from telling the story and this analysis went much deeper. What is fascinating about the stats is that Stanford had more aces - yet Nebraska was in system more often (I think it said that) and Nebraska was more effective while in system and Stanford was better OOS than Nebraska. Nebraska's backcourt defense was better, while the blocking for Stanford was better. This kind of detail I found interesting.
But you your point - I agree that # of aces doesn't necessarily tell us who is serving better. All it told us is how Stanford was able to outscore Nebraska while hitting at a lower %. Same with blocks - blocking is way more than just number of blocks.
I never said it told us who was "serving better". In fact, I pointed out that Nebraska hit better than their season average, so it's really questionable that Stanford was doing some outstanding serving overall. What I said then and now (and what Joe's analysis also said) is that IN THIS MATCH the deciding factor that won the match for Stanford was points directly from the service line (what he called "non-rally points"). Did I say aces always indicate the level of serving quality? No. But that wasn't really the question here. The question was, how did Stanford win this match even while being outhit? And the answer, FOR THIS MATCH, was the aces. This was pretty obvious as soon as the box score was released, but it's nice to see that the obvious answer also held up under deeper analysis. That doesn't always happen. Yeah - someone is creating a straw man to argue with - so it becomes possible to agree with both sides...
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Post by donut on Jan 25, 2019 16:55:46 GMT -5
In this post: www.scoutvb.com/blog-1/2019/1/25/2018-ncaa-championship-breakdownI break down the NCAA Championship and explain how Stanford won despite being out-hit by Nebraska. Hope you guys enjoy. I'd also love to hear what other matches you guys would be interested in seeing a breakdown of. Something from the NCAA season, or maybe a current pro match? I can usually wrangle up video on just about any match out there I would personally love to see this breakdown by set, since volleyball isn't a sport where "scoring the most points" really matters. It's first to 25, and then reset. Stanford won the match because they won 3 sets - they may have won set 1 because of "no rally points" but maybe they won sets 3 and 5 for different reasons. Overall though, throughout the course of the game and taking a "total points" analysis approach, I agree with mikegarrison - the Stanford aces (and service errors ratio) were the differentiator (especially since both teams caused trouble with their "rally" serves 30% of the time). Anybody recall what the distribution of those aces were throughout the sets though (back to my first point)?
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Post by joetrinsey on Jan 25, 2019 17:06:41 GMT -5
This is awesome! One question. You said tool/block errors. Are you giving a kill for a tool AND giving a blocking error for a tool? Correct. What I do is, every time there's a kill, I basically "assign" it to either a blocker or a defender. Sometimes I feel like blocking or digging "error" feels a bit too strong, because hitters sometimes just make great hits and catch the fingertips for a kill, or hit a ball that's very difficult to dig. But over time, elite blockers get "fingertipped" less than average blockers, and that will show up in the stats.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 25, 2019 17:07:36 GMT -5
I never said it told us who was "serving better". In fact, I pointed out that Nebraska hit better than their season average, so it's really questionable that Stanford was doing some outstanding serving overall. What I said then and now (and what Joe's analysis also said) is that IN THIS MATCH the deciding factor that won the match for Stanford was points directly from the service line (what he called "non-rally points"). Did I say aces always indicate the level of serving quality? No. But that wasn't really the question here. The question was, how did Stanford win this match even while being outhit? And the answer, FOR THIS MATCH, was the aces. This was pretty obvious as soon as the box score was released, but it's nice to see that the obvious answer also held up under deeper analysis. That doesn't always happen. Yeah - someone is creating a straw man to argue with - so it becomes possible to agree with both sides...
It's a pet peeve of some people (including Ruffda, IMO) that aces are always taken as an indication of serving toughness. So I think he's busy arguing against that, even though that's got nothing to do with this analysis. Whether Stanford was "serving tough" or not, they did get a whole bunch of aces. Nebraska did fine with the balls they passed, but they lost because of the balls they failed to pass.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 25, 2019 17:15:41 GMT -5
This is awesome! One question. You said tool/block errors. Are you giving a kill for a tool AND giving a blocking error for a tool? Correct. What I do is, every time there's a kill, I basically "assign" it to either a blocker or a defender. Sometimes I feel like blocking or digging "error" feels a bit too strong, because hitters sometimes just make great hits and catch the fingertips for a kill, or hit a ball that's very difficult to dig. But over time, elite blockers get "fingertipped" less than average blockers, and that will show up in the stats. Just to be clear, you're not talking about "errors" in the box score sense, right? You're talking about splitting kills between "beating the block" and "beating the defense"? I assume an actual blocking error (blocker in the net) would automatically count as a kill that was counted against the block. But also "wipes" and "high hands" and "waterfall" plays would also count as kills assigned to the block? What about plays where the hitter just beats the blocker to the spot and gets an open look at the court? Do you count that against the floor defense even though maybe the problem was that the block never got there at all?
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Post by joetrinsey on Jan 25, 2019 17:49:53 GMT -5
In this post: www.scoutvb.com/blog-1/2019/1/25/2018-ncaa-championship-breakdownI break down the NCAA Championship and explain how Stanford won despite being out-hit by Nebraska. Hope you guys enjoy. I'd also love to hear what other matches you guys would be interested in seeing a breakdown of. Something from the NCAA season, or maybe a current pro match? I can usually wrangle up video on just about any match out there I would personally love to see this breakdown by set, since volleyball isn't a sport where "scoring the most points" really matters. It's first to 25, and then reset. Stanford won the match because they won 3 sets - they may have won set 1 because of "no rally points" but maybe they won sets 3 and 5 for different reasons. Overall though, throughout the course of the game and taking a "total points" analysis approach, I agree with mikegarrison - the Stanford aces (and service errors ratio) were the differentiator (especially since both teams caused trouble with their "rally" serves 30% of the time). Anybody recall what the distribution of those aces were throughout the sets though (back to my first point)? By set: Set 1 (28-26 Stanford)Rally PointsStanford =21 Nebraska = 23No-Rally PointsStanford = 7 Nebraska = 3Set 2 (22-25 Nebraska)Rally PointsStanford = 19 Nebraska = 22No-Rally PointsStanford = 3 Nebraska = 3Set 3 (25-16 Stanford)Rally PointsStanford = 23 Nebraska = 14No-Rally PointsStanford = 2 Nebraska = 2Set 4 (15-25 Nebraska)Rally PointsStanford = 13 Nebraska = 23No-Rally PointsStanford = 2 Nebraska = 2Set 5 (15-12 Stanford)Rally PointsStanford = 12 Nebraska = 12No-Rally PointsStanford = 3 Nebraska = 0So, to put it another way: Stanford only had more Rally Points in one set (set 3, their blowout win), but they won the match. Nebraska had more Rally Points in 3 sets (1, 2, 4) and equal in set 5, yet still lost. In a complex game like volleyball, it is, of course, reductive to say that one thing was "the difference." Either of these teams could spot plenty of teams 3 No-Rally points a game and still win the set because of how good both are within the rally. But I find it really fascinating, as a coach, how you can be worse when, "volleyball happens," and still win a match. When I first started thinking about this concept, I was just coaching juniors club volleyball back in Delaware and was trying to find ways in which we could beat the more powerful teams from California, Texas, etc. I sort of mentally separated the game into 2 different games (Rally and No-Rally) and figured we might not always be able to win the Rally game, but we could win the No-Rally game almost every time and we did. And of course, sometimes we won the No-Rally game, but it wasn't enough. Got to be good everywhere! It's sort of become a truism in volleyball coaching that, "we're not serving for aces, just to get the other team out-of-system," and while that's not entirely wrong, aces do matter and it's almost a different skill between "passing well" and "not getting aced." There's not quite a 1:1 correlation there.
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Post by joetrinsey on Jan 25, 2019 17:56:59 GMT -5
Correct. What I do is, every time there's a kill, I basically "assign" it to either a blocker or a defender. Sometimes I feel like blocking or digging "error" feels a bit too strong, because hitters sometimes just make great hits and catch the fingertips for a kill, or hit a ball that's very difficult to dig. But over time, elite blockers get "fingertipped" less than average blockers, and that will show up in the stats. Just to be clear, you're not talking about "errors" in the box score sense, right? You're talking about splitting kills between "beating the block" and "beating the defense"? I assume an actual blocking error (blocker in the net) would automatically count as a kill that was counted against the block. But also "wipes" and "high hands" and "waterfall" plays would also count as kills assigned to the block? What about plays where the hitter just beats the blocker to the spot and gets an open look at the court? Do you count that against the floor defense even though maybe the problem was that the block never got there at all? All correct and for the last play, I would probably assign that to the blocker. If the hitter "bounces" it straight down, to where I feel the defense never had a realistic shot, I assign that to the blocker, and that's how I recommend coaches who are using my GMS Stats app (now available in the iTunes store ) do it as well. So in men's volleyball, for example, you'll see a fair amount of attacks where there's a decent single block up, but a guy still hits a ball that's basically undiggable. It will happen sometimes in women's as well. I like doing this because when I analyze matches, I want to see whether the block or defense is essentially the weak link, because that gives us info that can help us assign time and energy in practice.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 25, 2019 18:15:10 GMT -5
Thanks Joe. It's good to see ideas about how to break this stuff down to useful components.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2019 18:23:12 GMT -5
I would personally love to see this breakdown by set, since volleyball isn't a sport where "scoring the most points" really matters. It's first to 25, and then reset. Stanford won the match because they won 3 sets - they may have won set 1 because of "no rally points" but maybe they won sets 3 and 5 for different reasons. Overall though, throughout the course of the game and taking a "total points" analysis approach, I agree with mikegarrison - the Stanford aces (and service errors ratio) were the differentiator (especially since both teams caused trouble with their "rally" serves 30% of the time). Anybody recall what the distribution of those aces were throughout the sets though (back to my first point)? By set: Set 1 (28-26 Stanford)Rally PointsStanford =21 Nebraska = 23No-Rally PointsStanford = 7 Nebraska = 3Set 2 (22-25 Nebraska)Rally PointsStanford = 19 Nebraska = 22No-Rally PointsStanford = 3 Nebraska = 3Set 3 (25-16 Stanford)Rally PointsStanford = 23 Nebraska = 14No-Rally PointsStanford = 2 Nebraska = 2Set 4 (15-25 Nebraska)Rally PointsStanford = 13 Nebraska = 23No-Rally PointsStanford = 2 Nebraska = 2Set 5 (15-12 Stanford)Rally PointsStanford = 12 Nebraska = 12No-Rally PointsStanford = 3 Nebraska = 0So, to put it another way: Stanford only had more Rally Points in one set (set 3, their blowout win), but they won the match. Nebraska had more Rally Points in 3 sets (1, 2, 4) and equal in set 5, yet still lost. In a complex game like volleyball, it is, of course, reductive to say that one thing was "the difference." Either of these teams could spot plenty of teams 3 No-Rally points a game and still win the set because of how good both are within the rally. But I find it really fascinating, as a coach, how you can be worse when, "volleyball happens," and still win a match. When I first started thinking about this concept, I was just coaching juniors club volleyball back in Delaware and was trying to find ways in which we could beat the more powerful teams from California, Texas, etc. I sort of mentally separated the game into 2 different games (Rally and No-Rally) and figured we might not always be able to win the Rally game, but we could win the No-Rally game almost every time and we did. And of course, sometimes we won the No-Rally game, but it wasn't enough. Got to be good everywhere! :) It's sort of become a truism in volleyball coaching that, "we're not serving for aces, just to get the other team out-of-system," and while that's not entirely wrong, aces do matter and it's almost a different skill between "passing well" and "not getting aced." There's not quite a 1:1 correlation there. THIS -- pretty much how I broke it down in the match thread. Two other points: 1). I used to calibrate the "clutch-ness" or "choked-ness" tendencies (my terms; easy to see what I mean) as to WHEN critical successes (such as Sydney Wilson's Clutch serving, plus SA, at 12-10 and 13-10) occurred: along w/ When crucial errors happened (ie: NE SEs in the middle of the 5th Set; when they could've kept momentum)! 2). Keeping our guys (men) in-system; plus, trying to get the other teams OOS; was key, also. Fully agree with your statements, "....Got to be good everywhere! :)"; and, the conundrums w/in that phrase, "...volleyball happens...". Just our Idiosyncratic sport! EDIT: afa a propensity for 'losing it' ("choked-ness": what happened with Foecke in 5th set), these student-athletes are human/ get gassed: final kill was off her forearm.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Jan 25, 2019 22:22:30 GMT -5
Would I be correct in saying:
Stanford outscored Nebraska because:
1) They won the non-rally points (serving)
2) They were more efficient out of system
3) They were better on defense at the net - whether blocking or fewer blocking errors.
Since they only won one more point - they need each of these edges over Nebraska to overcome the things that Nebraska did better. None of them would have been sufficient to outscore Nebraska by themselves. Had Stanford's hitting efficiency OOS been the same as Nebraska - the non rally points would not have overcome Nebraska's advantage in rally points.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 25, 2019 23:12:49 GMT -5
Would I be correct in saying: Stanford outscored Nebraska because: 1) They won the non-rally points (serving) 2) They were more efficient out of system 3) They were better on defense at the net - whether blocking or fewer blocking errors. Since they only won one more point - they need each of these edges over Nebraska to overcome the things that Nebraska did better. None of them would have been sufficient to outscore Nebraska by themselves. Had Stanford's hitting efficiency OOS been the same as Nebraska - the non rally points would not have overcome Nebraska's advantage in rally points. Well, you could say that they won the match by showing up with at least six players, because otherwise it would have been a forfeit and they would have lost. Saying "they would have lost if not for X" is not really the same thing as saying "they won because of X". A lot of X's just have to be assumed as given, particularly in the kind of team that reaches a national title match. They are going to have good serving, they are going to have good passing, they are going to have good blocking, they are going to have good hitting, they are going to have good setting, etc. etc. If they don't have any of that stuff, they lose. But given that both teams show up with their good stuff, then what makes them actually win? ("Luck" is a possible answer to that, and often in fact the right one!) I think you can't just list everywhere that Stanford had any kind of advantage over Nebraska and say "that's part of the reason they won". You have to look with a more critical eye if you want to draw out anything useful. Something like "Stanford had a higher percentage when attacking out of system" is fine, but it's obviously not the place to go looking for the margin of victory in a match where Nebraska overall out-hit and out-killed Stanford. That's the kind of thing you look to more if Stanford had out-killed Nebraska, and you were trying to figure out which part of the attack was what allowed them to do it. Or if you look at the blocking you see that Stanford outperformed Nebraska at the block but Nebraska outdid Stanford defending behind the block, and so on the whole those balanced out or even tilted toward Nebraska. (They did end up scoring more on the rally plays, remember.) The reason to highlight the service line points is because the difference was very stark. Nebraska overall won that match except for aces, but the effect of the aces was so big that Stanford ended up the actual winner.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 0:28:26 GMT -5
Would I be correct in saying: Stanford outscored Nebraska because: 1) They won the non-rally points (serving) 2) They were more efficient out of system 3) They were better on defense at the net - whether blocking or fewer blocking errors. Since they only won one more point - they need each of these edges over Nebraska to overcome the things that Nebraska did better. None of them would have been sufficient to outscore Nebraska by themselves. Had Stanford's hitting efficiency OOS been the same as Nebraska - the non rally points would not have overcome Nebraska's advantage in rally points. Obfuscation (and ignoramuses) aside, I would concur with ya -- plus, I am sure Joe would too -- and add these three points: 1) Stanford had one more side out, plus one more point in the match; the difference was razor-thin, as was the match; 2) WHEN those 'non-rally points' occurred - NEB SEs and S. Wilson's SA (plus other tough serves) in the 5th Set -- were crucial for SU to win the match; 3) The 1st Set was VITALLY important: Stanford's critically needed SAs were The Only Reason they won a set in which they Were Quite statistically outplayed. I have never been acquainted w/ Joe Trinsey's work before this thread; this gentleman is THE REAL deal, coach-wise.
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