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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 18:06:27 GMT -5
is that VB IS an i9diosynchratic sport: broken up into 25-point sets. So this is what you're saying? It's as simple as this? Volleyball is a complicated sport and stats can't be informative because it's just such a complicated sport? And everyone here knows that volleyball is broken up into 25 point sets. Literally everyone knows that. No one is saying anything different. The whole argument is that some people are wrong because volleyball is too complicated for stats and it's played in separate sets to 25?? That's a pretty weak argument if you ask me. NO -- that is NOT what I am saying -- if you haven't read my Numerous posts on this thread, instead of cherry-picking A PART OF a Sentence - out-of-context - in One of my posts, here: you might learn something. I was ADDING ON TO - & affirming - another poster's comment; which you could find, if ya tried. Joe Trinsey 'liked' my initial posts; has he done that with any of yours? You Seem To Be misunderstanding a # of posters; Further, you Seem to be Deliberately Misquoting one of my 9 posts here!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 18:31:30 GMT -5
Not too complicated for stats. But the basic stats often fail to capture the complexity.
That said, serving and passing is where you can almost always go to find out why one team won. I just don't think aces and service errors will tell you what you need to know.
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Post by Scipio Aemilianus on Jan 27, 2019 18:41:22 GMT -5
So now we can only look at set 1 only after 21-19? Anything before that is irrelevant. Just like anything before 9-9 in set 5 is less meaningful. Aces early in the game mean less than aces at the end of games. We need boxscores to be updated with these more important and timely stats before we can debate the results of games...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 18:54:41 GMT -5
So now we can only look at set 1 only after 21-19? Anything before that is irrelevant. Just like anything before 9-9 in set 5 is less meaningful. Aces early in the game mean less than aces at the end of games. We need boxscores to be updated with these more important and timely stats before we can debate the results of games... Uh, no. But would you agree that sets 1-4 have nothing to do with set 5? I mean, trends can be established (and continued), but they don't HAVE TO. This is a basic error in logic. I think this is a different topic, however. Maybe not.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 27, 2019 19:06:06 GMT -5
In your honest opinion, what is your reasoning for why Stanford won and Nebraska lost? That's the thing: I'm not claiming there was a singular reason. You and Mike are. I'm comfortable with there NOT being a single stat to point us toward why someone won or lost. This is BULLCRAP. You are sniping and sniping about people trying to pull information out of this match, and all you are saying is "volleyball is too complicated". You know what? You don't have to read this thread if you don't want to. But if you do, you should a) have an open mind to what people say, and b) tell us what you think is a batter interpretation. But no, you are hostile to the entire idea. No one has said there was only one factor that won or lost the match for anyone. Remember when I pointed out that "arriving with six players" was a factor for Stanford winning the match? Obviously if they had scored fewer points in any way during the key sets, they would have lost instead of having won. This is trivial -- the team that scores the most points wins, and the team that wins three sets wins the match. It's often used sarcastically. "Why did they win?" "Because they scored more points than the other team in three sets." Yeah, yeah, but that's the answer of a lazy person who isn't interested in trying figure out exactly how they did it. In most matches it's easy -- you look at the hitting percentages and number of points from kills and you see that the team that hit better won. Then you can start trying to figure out the next level answer, "but why did they hit better?" In this match, however, you had the more interesting result that the team that clearly and definitely hit better actually lost. So Stanford needed to come up with points somewhere other than hitting, because remember, the team that scores the most points in three sets wins. So points damn well are important. Blocking and BHEs and attack errors didn't provide that necessary batch of points for Stanford to win, so there was only one place left for them to come from -- directly from the service line. Stanford scored 105 points that night, and only 17 of them came directly off the service line. So nobody thinks those were the only points that matter. But it was the DIFFERENCE between the Stanford service points and the Nebraska service points that made up the deficit Stanford lost on rally points. That was the key -- they lost a lot of rally points and needed to get their points from somewhere else. And they did. There is judgment in any analysis of complex data. It's not just a matter of running a mathematical algorithm and coming out with "the answer". You usually have to know which bits of the data are really important and which are not, which are the right algorithms to use in that situation, have at least a feel for the significance of any finding, etc. Choices have to be made. But people like you come along and complain not because of *which* choices were made but just because *any* choices were made. It's so much simpler to look at the complicated soup of data and just say, "ah well, nobody can tell." Now if you have an actual analysis of the match you want to provide, then do it. But otherwise you're acting like a five year old, just lashing out at things because you don't understand them. ------------------ As for whether total points wins a match, the answer is obviously "no". But total points DOES reflect how well a team was playing versus the other team. We all know the team that plays the best doesn't always win, but they usually do. And total points turns out to be a very good measurement of which team was playing the best. That's the whole basis of pablo. Paul tried other ways of figuring out how well teams played each other, including factoring in the number of sets. But none of them worked as well as just looking at the total points when it came to predicting the outcome if the two teams meet again. It is very reasonable to look at total points in a match broken down by different phases of the game (like serving, hitting, blocking, etc.) because even though each set starts over from zero and you have to win three sets, you get a better sample size and more signal-to-noise if you look at the whole match for stuff like that. Of course a detailed analysis will also break it down by set or rotation or player +/- if they were subbing in and out or whatever, but when you do that you always have to understand you are working with smaller sample sizes. So you have to be careful to consider whether you are looking at random noise or whether there really was a fundamental shift in the underlying factors.
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Post by joetrinsey on Jan 27, 2019 19:30:40 GMT -5
I think there's a disconnect here between people who watch matches as a fan and who watch matches as coaches. I don't say that to act like one is better than the other. But a fan perspective is going to try to find a narrative whereas a coach perspective is looking at actionable information.
From a coaching perspective, looking at total points matters. It's been shown that point differential is actually a better predictor of winning and losing than whether you won or lost. (See the work that bofaonthesofa has contributed) Also, coaches know that there's a lot of randomness involved in the game. I hesitate to call it luck, because that feels like it's an external factor acting on you. It's not. But you train your team to be as good as you can each area of the game, and they'll generally produce results that come out in accordance with your skill level. But those results get clumped up in weird ways. Even Jordan Larson will make a couple unforced errors in a row every now and then. Even a mediocre player will catch fingertips and kill 4 balls in one set.
Just look at the match Nebraska played before this one vs Illinois. In the first two sets Illinois had 4 aces and 0 errors, and in the last three sets Illinois had 5 aces and 10 errors. Not coincidentally, Illinois won the first two sets and lost the last three. Sure, you could parse that information up into serving contributing to them winning the first two sets and contributing to them losing the last three. There's value in that.
But if you're trying to understand how good your team is at serving, you (mostly) look at the overall total. 9 aces, 10 errors. Not bad, but not outstanding. Over time you wouldn't predict this team to have many matches where they have a bunch of aces and no errors (like sets 1 and 2) or too many matches where they have twice as many errors as aces, like in sets 3-5. You'd figure they would come out closer to a 9:10 ratio (or really, more like the 7:10 ratio that they were at for the season).
There's lots of ways to slice things up. A wise coach uses as many tools as possible and looks at things from every angle possible.
One takeaway from this match is: it's possible to be worse than a team within the rally, and still beat them. This match shows that from an overall perspective, and from a single-game perspective. What's even more compelling about this, to me, is that it's tough to say Nebraska is a worse passing team than Stanford. Nebraska was actually in-system a touch more (but essentially the same) than Stanford. Passing the ball accurately and not getting aced are two skills that are very related... but maybe not quite 100% overlap. Also, 3 of Stanford's aces were clean aces where a Nebraska called the ball out and it caught the line. Maybe a fluke, maybe not. Maybe it was just early nerves of being in a National Championship game.
When you get to the why, you need to be with players day-in and day-out to really understand. The stats don't tell you that. The job of statistics should be to shift the lens of perspective, raise the right questions, and help you prioritize.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 19:39:07 GMT -5
No argument with any of that. But maybe I will. I'm bored.
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Post by donut on Jan 27, 2019 19:41:33 GMT -5
Even Jordan Larson will make a couple unforced errors in a row every now and then. this is heresy
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 19:41:49 GMT -5
I think there's a disconnect here between people who watch matches as a fan and who watch matches as coaches. I don't say that to act like one is better than the other. But a fan perspective is going to try to find a narrative whereas a coach perspective is looking at actionable information. You've also failed to address any of the number of points that the critics of your blog post have raised. Instead, you patronizingly replied, "You guys are just fans and don't understand how coaches analyze this information." I thought your analysis was really... surface. I read nothing that led me to believe there was a deep analysis on your part. I thought the same of your post on the Illinois match. You just used your app. I'd love to read more detail in the future, not that you care about my opinion at all.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 19:43:55 GMT -5
That's the thing: I'm not claiming there was a singular reason. You and Mike are. I'm comfortable with there NOT being a single stat to point us toward why someone won or lost. This is BULLCRAP. You are sniping and sniping about people trying to pull information out of this match, and all you are saying is "volleyball is too complicated". You know what? You don't have to read this thread if you don't want to. But if you do, you should a) have an open mind to what people say, and b) tell us what you think is a batter interpretation. But no, you are hostile to the entire idea. Says the guy who has yet to respond to any of the arguments that I've actually made. Instead, you exaggerate, lecture, and obfuscate my (and others') actual positions. Enlighten me: if I'm hostile to your ideas, what the hell do you call your reactions to mine? Anyway, TL;DR.
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Post by Scipio Aemilianus on Jan 27, 2019 20:05:14 GMT -5
You've also failed to address any of the number of points that the critics of your blog post have raised. Instead, you patronizingly replied, "You guys are just fans and don't understand how coaches analyze this information." I thought your analysis was really... surface. I read nothing that led me to believe there was a deep analysis on your part. I thought the same of your post on the Illinois match. You just used your app. I'd love to read more detail in the future, not that you care about my opinion at all. Says the guy who has yet to respond to any of the arguments that I've actually made. Instead, you exaggerate, lecture, and obfuscate my (and others') actual positions. Enlighten me: if I'm hostile to your ideas, what the hell do you call your reactions to mine? Anyway, TL;DR. Wow sounds like a real nice guy this shhhhhhhhh. You will never admit it, but you haven't made a single argument other than it's too complicated, everyone else's arguments are wrong, and everyone is terribly rude except for you. The truth is you haven't come up with any of your own ideas and you don't want to do anything besides rudely tell others they are wrong.
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Post by Scipio Aemilianus on Jan 27, 2019 20:09:27 GMT -5
That's the thing: I'm not claiming there was a singular reason. You and Mike are. I'm comfortable with there NOT being a single stat to point us toward why someone won or lost. This is BULLCRAP. You are sniping and sniping about people trying to pull information out of this match, and all you are saying is "volleyball is too complicated". You know what? You don't have to read this thread if you don't want to. But if you do, you should a) have an open mind to what people say, and b) tell us what you think is a batter interpretation. But no, you are hostile to the entire idea. Yeah, yeah, but that's the answer of a lazy person who isn't interested in trying figure out exactly how they did it. But people like you come along and complain not because of *which* choices were made but just because *any* choices were made. It's so much simpler to look at the complicated soup of data and just say, "ah well, nobody can tell." Now if you have an actual analysis of the match you want to provide, then do it. But otherwise you're acting like a five year old, just lashing out at things because you don't understand them. These lines are so spot on it's incredible.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 20:10:58 GMT -5
shhhhh has made many arguments better than that. But, sure, civility is always welcome. You twat.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2019 20:12:23 GMT -5
People want a simple answer. I get it. It's not my fault that it's not simple.
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Post by donut on Jan 27, 2019 20:22:01 GMT -5
So now we can only look at set 1 only after 21-19? Anything before that is irrelevant. Just like anything before 9-9 in set 5 is less meaningful. Aces early in the game mean less than aces at the end of games. We need boxscores to be updated with these more important and timely stats before we can debate the results of games... No, this is an exaggeration. I think joetrinsey hit it right on the head with looking at the stats from a "coaching perspective." From that POV, of course the entire game matters. Of course generally hitting at a higher % and FBSO % (for example), are going to correlate with winning. In terms of things you can control and practice, the service line game (in this Championship match, for example), is going to be one of Coach Cook's biggest takeaways (not sure how much he can "work on it" though, considering Nebraska is usually the best serve-receive team in the country, but that's besides the point). In terms of performance and coaching, surveying the general trends and averages of a match makes sense. What others are talking about is why a team won, which is different from above "coaching perspective." Idk, call it the "consequential perspective." At 21-19 - Stanford had already won all of its non-rally points, and Nebraska overcame those points to tie it at 24-24. How can you say that Stanford won because of those non-rally points, when Nebraska cancelled them out? Then, after set 1 is over, regardless of how close it is (see: 26-24), that margin is erased and replaced with a 1-0. Winner-takes-all. The same goes with 9-9 in Set 5; it doesn't matter who has played the best up to that point. It matters who plays the best for the next 6 points. Paragraph B isn't going to be as relevant for a coach because it's harder to control. But it's a more accurate analysis when you claim causation, because causation is consequential.
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