Final 4 Review

Exactly as I predicted...

Yesterday I previewed the Pitt - Louisville and Nebraska - PSU matchups.

I predicted victories by Pitt and Nebraska so… naturally Louisville and PSU won. Which highlights something about stats and analytics: it’s far easier to tell what happened than what will happen. Fortunately I’m in good company: more than half of you in the reader poll also predicted Pitt v Nebraska for the Finals matchup. SmarterVolley is more about coaching than prognosticating, but let’s start by reviewing the semifinal matchups and see if that tells us anything about the Championship.

(Originally I planned to do this as a webinar, but I found the slideshow presentation a little clunkier than embedding the clips right into Substack. In order to keep email lengths within limits, I’m separating them into 2 parts… this first part will review the Final 4 matchups and then Part 2 will preview the finals matchup. I’ll keep a short preview for free subscribers, but a lot of this will be behind the paywall.)

Louisville 3 - Pitt 1

This match was a dead heat until 10-7 in the 4th set, where a 4-point Louisville run put them up by 7. Pitt never got within 6 the rest of the set and Louisville closed it out in 4. Let’s look at that run.

The first thing to note is the rotations. Louisville is receiving in Setter-2, which is statistically one of the weaker rotations in women’s college volleyball. Louisville’s Setter-2 hasn’t been bad this year; it’s been a bit below their overall sideout average, but you wouldn’t call it a glaring weakness. And it’s been good in the tournament.

The pass actually puts them in the spot that highlights exactly why this can be a challenging sideout rotation:

• Pass moves the setter backward (and setter misreads a bit, so she has to move backward)

• Low-volume slide hitter with the pass off-center means that ball is very unlikely to go slide. And setter is off the net so the dump isn’t a threat.

• Pipe hitter is available, but unlikely to be set.

So now Pitt knows that the ball is almost certainly going left side. And long-distance sets to a left-side attacker with both blockers leaving to get her are not very efficient. But… that’s why part of the game is about tactics and strategy, but, as much as you strategize as a coach, winning big matches often comes down to players making plays in tough spots.

And Luper takes a great swing; high on the long angle. The ball was called out but they get it on replay challenge. And the Pitt blockers really do everything right here. Kelley drops in on the low angle because a lot of hitters end up having to broad jump to these inside sets and they risk the low sharp-angle shot. But watch Luper keep her shuffle narrow, so she can get to the window and go straight up. That allows her to high point the ball and swing long rather than wide.

I also love the setter keeping this ball inside and not sending this ball low/tight into the antenna. Keeping the hitter a little inside opens up so much more range. We don’t need the ball all the way to the pin. 5’ inside is great. ChatGPT says it’s 5.6’ inside and who am I to argue?

We don’t need to coach our teams to push it all the way out. We need to keep our hitters inside the court and get them jumping vertically to the ball.

Some teams teams talk about a 6m tether between setter and outside hitter when the setter is moving backward. I’d love to ask Louisville’s staff is this is systematized or if this is just a setter and hitter on the same page and making subconscious adjustments for each other.

So Louisville gets the sideout in Setter-2. And now, Pitt has to sideout in Setter-2.