Post by notvballdad on Nov 18, 2024 13:33:05 GMT -5
I'll preface this by saying I know just enough to be dangerous. It's been 30 years since I really played (men's side) or coached (girl's club) and have casually observed but really dug in over the last two years on watching matches. One thing that strikes me, to my untrained eye is that that offenses seem a bit stagnant. I'd liken it to basketball with a PG that tries to get the ball to players in their preferred position, but from there, it's basically isolation and one on one. I ask this because I've watched matches where players have an unfavorable matchup across the net or someone that emphasizes the offensive players weakness (almost all players have some area that is weaker than others) and there seems to be little to no adjustment other than maybe speeding up a set or trying to get the player to alter their placement a bit/hit high hands/tool the block.
Again, its been thirty years since I've played and I played on an undersized team so our entire offensive strategy was based on deception, overloading zones, moving hitters, playing fast tempo and having all players hit from non traditional zones to try and force movement by the blockers that they were not used to or comfortable with and not knowing where anything was coming from. In the women's game, the evolutions seems to be a few more opportunities from the back row (and I understand hitting % drops by about 100 pts when hitting from back row) but that is the only real "wrinkle" that seems to have been added in the last 10 or so years as best as I can tell.
I also understand that ball control plays a huge part in what you are able to run and you have to have safety plays for OOS and less than ideal touches but even then we tried to not be as predictable with a high ball to the pin. We tried to move locations and make it ambiguous as to which hitter would take the ball so the defense couldn't cheat around into postion.
I may be missing a ton and there may be way more nuance going that I don't see but I was just curious as to why on the women's side there doesn't seem to be much to make offenses dynamic other than speed and it's mostly matchups and hoping that our strength is better than their defense and if not, we try another matchup to see if it opens any opportunities.
Again, its been thirty years since I've played and I played on an undersized team so our entire offensive strategy was based on deception, overloading zones, moving hitters, playing fast tempo and having all players hit from non traditional zones to try and force movement by the blockers that they were not used to or comfortable with and not knowing where anything was coming from. In the women's game, the evolutions seems to be a few more opportunities from the back row (and I understand hitting % drops by about 100 pts when hitting from back row) but that is the only real "wrinkle" that seems to have been added in the last 10 or so years as best as I can tell.
I also understand that ball control plays a huge part in what you are able to run and you have to have safety plays for OOS and less than ideal touches but even then we tried to not be as predictable with a high ball to the pin. We tried to move locations and make it ambiguous as to which hitter would take the ball so the defense couldn't cheat around into postion.
I may be missing a ton and there may be way more nuance going that I don't see but I was just curious as to why on the women's side there doesn't seem to be much to make offenses dynamic other than speed and it's mostly matchups and hoping that our strength is better than their defense and if not, we try another matchup to see if it opens any opportunities.
