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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 21:45:07 GMT -5
Just wanted to say thank you for this excellent educational lesson (takedown?) given here. I completely agree with everything you’ve stated about simple non-subjective stats like service aces and errors. And honestly it’s funny to see people disagree so much and not see the logic. 2+1=3 and 15-12=3 seems pretty simple enough to most of us. Again, thank you for your detailed analysis and commentary. I felt guilty about the ad hominem attack, though. My only excuse is that I was getting frustrated and it was late at night. @allamerican11 or anybody else has the same right to look at the data and draw conclusions from it. But I think he's not looking at the data -- he's deliberately excluding the data that doesn't fit what he wants to see.Holy mother of nuts. You're the one that wants a singular reason for Stanford's win, so you're using the 9-2 advantage in aces. You're ignoring that 4/155 total points were Stanford aces. You're ignoring that it was Stanford's defense/transition that won them the fifth set, not the ace and the two Nebraska SEs because it's mathematically convenient. You're ignoring that 5 of Stanford's 9 aces occurred in the first set alone. You're deciding that one stat won the match, and have said so several times. It wasn't aces. Joe's "analysis" was incredibly rudimentary. If looking at raw match totals in a sport divided into sets isn't the best possible example of manipulating data so it confirms what you want to believe, I don't know what is.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 21:45:50 GMT -5
Between the two of us, @allamerican11 , I think it's pretty obvious which one of us has made a living for the last 30 years by analyzing complex data. Your arguments are really specious. Of course no one can prove what would have happened if what did happen hadn't happened, but so what? What did happen was pretty damn clear for all of us to see. I don't know why you feel compelled to argue against the obvious interpretation of the data, and I don't really care at this point. You aren't offering any insight by telling us that the team who wins the fifth set of a match wins the match. We all know that already, and that's exactly why it fails as a useful match analysis. It's about as useful as pointing out that the team that scores the last point in the match wins. Sure, that's true 100% of the time, but it doesn't mean that last point is the reason why they won. Again, thank you for your detailed analysis and commentary. Definitely missed a detailed analysis from Mike. Can you point me in the right direction?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 21:48:42 GMT -5
I have no dog in this fight and I ain't bringing strawmen to it. I was defending what I had originally said, which I think was misrepresented here.
Stanford may have won because they had more aces than Nebraska. But I still think that's an over-simplification, even if I admit it's possible.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 21:49:12 GMT -5
Of course no one can prove what would have happened if what did happen hadn't happened, but so what? What did happen was pretty damn clear for all of us to see. You're the one that said that there "never" would've been a fifth set if not for Stanford's aces. That isn't true. The fifth set was tied at 9s. Nebraska was in the exact same position to win the match as Stanford. Hell, Nebraska was in a position to win the match DESPITE Stanford's nine aces. How would that have changed your analysis, if the points scored from 9-9 onward were simply flipped?
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Post by volleyguy on Jan 26, 2019 22:02:10 GMT -5
I have no dog in this fight and I ain't bringing strawmen to it. I was defending what I had originally said, which I think was misrepresented here. Stanford may have won because they had more aces than Nebraska. But I still think that's an over-simplification, even if I admit it's possible. If service aces weren't the difference in each and every set, then why consider service aces to be the difference in the whole or entire match? This is the same problem that exists with looking at the difference in number of totals points as an indicator of the closeness of the entire match, when in fact, some sets were close and some were not so close, relatively.
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Post by Scipio Aemilianus on Jan 26, 2019 22:21:32 GMT -5
Ehat is the simplist and/or best way to calculate someone’s blocking defense? Hitting percentage seems to make sense. It calculates how your blockers and defenders prevented the other team from getting kills by getting digs, blocks, and forcing them to hit out of bounds. Seems pretty straightforward that the team who’s hitting percentage is better had a better blocking and defense, which I have read many times as the reason why Stanford won the match and therefore why they won the 3 sets that they did.
In set 1, Nebraska had a higher hitting percentage and the same number of attack errors. Stanford won set 1.
In set 2, Stanford had a higher hitting percentage and less attack errors. Nebraska won set 2.
In set 5, Nebraska had a higher hitting percentage and the same number of attack errors. Stanford won set 5.
Makes me think that having a better blocking defense isn’t the reason why sets 1, 2, and 5 were won.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2019 22:34:38 GMT -5
The problem -- and it's always going to be a problem with volleyball stats -- is that the rally is played to its conclusion. A great block, serve, dig, attack -- or whatever -- can win a point, but it can take 2, 3, 4 rallies for the point to end. You can only get so much from stats.
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Post by Scipio Aemilianus on Jan 26, 2019 23:00:15 GMT -5
The problem -- and it's always going to be a problem with volleyball stats -- is that the rally is played to its conclusion. A great block, serve, dig, attack -- or whatever -- can win a point, but it can take 2, 3, 4 rallies for the point to end. You can only get so much from stats. You know what you can get from stats, something clear and black and white, something that doesn’t take 2, 3, or 4 rallies for the point to be over? Service aces and service errors.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 26, 2019 23:20:13 GMT -5
I have no dog in this fight and I ain't bringing strawmen to it. I was defending what I had originally said, which I think was misrepresented here. Stanford may have won because they had more aces than Nebraska. But I still think that's an over-simplification, even if I admit it's possible. If service aces weren't the difference in each and every set, then why consider service aces to be the difference in the whole or entire match? This is the same problem that exists with looking at the difference in number of totals points as an indicator of the closeness of the entire match, when in fact, some sets were close and some were not so close, relatively. Points from the service line were the difference in 2 sets, both of which Stanford won. You know what happens if the winner of a five-set match only wins 1 set? We call that a 3-1 match for the other team.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 26, 2019 23:35:37 GMT -5
The fifth set was tied at 9s. Nebraska was in the exact same position to win the match as Stanford. Hell, Nebraska was in a position to win the match DESPITE Stanford's nine aces. How would that have changed your analysis, if the points scored from 9-9 onward were simply flipped? Then there wouldn't be any question why Nebraska won. If they had swapped those points around at the end then Stanford would have been +5 from the service line instead of +7, and Nebraska would have been +12 from rally points instead of +6. There would be no question that Nebraska had won because they massively out-hit Stanford, and the service line points would be pointed to as a reason Stanford was even able to hang around until the 5th set. But that's some alternate universe match you're talking about, not the one that really happened.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 0:09:13 GMT -5
The fifth set was tied at 9s. Nebraska was in the exact same position to win the match as Stanford. Hell, Nebraska was in a position to win the match DESPITE Stanford's nine aces. How would that have changed your analysis, if the points scored from 9-9 onward were simply flipped? But that's some alternate universe match you're talking about, not the one that really happened. Just like the match where there “never” would’ve been a fifth set without Stanford’s aces.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 0:11:09 GMT -5
If service aces weren't the difference in each and every set, then why consider service aces to be the difference in the whole or entire match? This is the same problem that exists with looking at the difference in number of totals points as an indicator of the closeness of the entire match, when in fact, some sets were close and some were not so close, relatively. Points from the service line were the difference in 2 sets. No they weren’t. 9-9.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Jan 27, 2019 0:14:20 GMT -5
For me, the obvious question of the match was "How did Nebraska out-hit, out-attack, and out-kill Stanford but still lose?" That just *doesn't* happen, but it did. And that's why the points from the service line are so important. They answer that question. Yes - that is the answer to that question and that may have been the most important question. This was also an answer that we could get from the box score (I think?): Rally Points: Nebraska +6 Non-Rally Points: Stanford +7 What I took from Joe's work was something in addition to this: Non-Rally Points: Stanford +7 In System Rally Points: Nebraska +10 Out of System Rally Points: Stanford +4 That Nebraska hit .119 higher in system and Stanford hit .042 higher out of system. * I am not sure I did this right - but it is a summation of what I thought I understood?
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 27, 2019 0:36:10 GMT -5
Points from the service line were the difference in 2 sets. No they weren’t. 9-9. Once upon a time, people used to make up myths about how when it came down to crunch time, teams or individuals won because of will, or a mystic ability to perform in the clutch, or all sorts of similar tales. But over and over and over again, sports analytics shows that the basic answer to that is simply "luck". You continue to focus your argument on the least meaningful part of the match. When two teams are so close that they get to the point where the next 6-out-of-10 wins the match, it's basically a tossup. Who gets lucky enough to get the right rotational matchup. Who gets the call on the serve that might have just barely touched the line. Who gets the float serve that drifts into a perfect pass and who gets the float serve that drifts into a shank. The question, though, is how did it possibly get to that point where Stanford was even in position to get the win? They were massively outhit up until that point, and the usual suspects for non-hitting points were all pretty much even. The only significant answer for how Stanford got to that 9-9 point is their service line point advantage offsetting Nebraska's hitting. You go ahead and keep looking for meaning in the random noise if you want, but some of us are trying to see what kind of real signal we can pull out of it.
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Post by volleyguy on Jan 27, 2019 4:51:18 GMT -5
Once upon a time, people used to make up myths about how when it came down to crunch time, teams or individuals won because of will, or a mystic ability to perform in the clutch, or all sorts of similar tales. But over and over and over again, sports analytics shows that the basic answer to that is simply "luck". You continue to focus your argument on the least meaningful part of the match. When two teams are so close that they get to the point where the next 6-out-of-10 wins the match, it's basically a tossup. Who gets lucky enough to get the right rotational matchup. Who gets the call on the serve that might have just barely touched the line. Who gets the float serve that drifts into a perfect pass and who gets the float serve that drifts into a shank. The question, though, is how did it possibly get to that point where Stanford was even in position to get the win? They were massively outhit up until that point, and the usual suspects for non-hitting points were all pretty much even. The only significant answer for how Stanford got to that 9-9 point is their service line point advantage offsetting Nebraska's hitting. You go ahead and keep looking for meaning in the random noise if you want, but some of us are trying to see what kind of real signal we can pull out of it. That may be the right approach, but you haven't actually found the difference in the match. Service aces may have determined that there'd be a fifth set, but they didn't decide the fifth set. That isn't random noise.
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